The Anti-corruption court has set 9th July 2018 to sum up the evidence of 23 prosecution witnesses to the two court appointed Assessors, in the corruption trial of former Works Minister Abraham Byandala.
Court assessors are members of the public who have no legal training, but are appointed and sworn in by court to follow a particular criminal case, and at the end give their unbinding opinion to the trial judge, on whether to convict or acquit a suspect.
In this case, trial judge Lawrence Gidudu has ordered that the assessors; Vincent Oketch and Stanley Kurongo will give advice to him in a one week’s time, after he has summed up the evidence for them.
Today defence lawyers made their final submissions to court, and asked Justice Gidudu to exonerate Byandala and six co-accused, on charges of stealing Shs 24 billion.
The money had been allocated for the upgrade of Mukono -Katosi -Kyetume -Nyenga road between 2013-2014.
The group is alleged to have irregularly awarded the contract to rehabilitate the road to a non-existent company- EUTAW, which is alleged to have sub-contracted another company with no expertise and equipment to do the job.
