09/08/2019
On July 28 1998, Cecilia Maria Goetz, an American national, who was staying at Hotel Equatorial in Kampala was murdered. She had been stabbed more than 30 times in the chest.
The prosecution adduced the evidence of 12 witnesses to prove its case, central to which was the evidence of Paddy Semanda, who was the first prosecution witness. He was a bell boy at the hotel who testified that on the fateful night, he had gone to the deceased's room to deliver fax messages and upon knocking on her door, there was no response from Cecilia but instead a voice of a man that was unknown to him, responded and asked to deliver the deceased's fax messages which he promised to deliver them to her. The bellboy accepted and returned to his post at the reception area.
Shortly after delivering the fax messages to the man, he saw the man pass the reception area carrying unknown load.
Hardly after the said man had left the hotel, someone called asking for the deceased. On calling the deceased's room, the reception workers received no reply. They sent the bellboy to physically check on her. He went to the deceased's door and knocked but she did not open. The bell boy decided to peep into the deceased's room and saw the room messed up with her pillows stained with blood. Mr. Semanda then returned to the reception area and reported the strange scene in Cecilia's room.
His supervisor then went with another person identified as John Oluka and found Cecilia's body lying on the bed. The manager of the hotel was informed of the incident and in turn, reported the matter to the nearby Central police station.
Later, Arinaitwe was arrested on October 30, 1998, in respect of a robbery case in Entebbe. In the course of the investigations, a knife with a manufacturer's inscription "Jack Pyke", was recovered from a vehicle towed from Arinaitwe's compound in upper Kololo. Unknown to Arinaitwe the sheath of the knife had slipped and fell in the hotel room. The sheath which was engraved with the manufacturer's inscription; "Jack Pyke" had earlier on been recovered by police from the murder scene at Hotel Equatorial. The knife fitted in the sheath with precision. Some blood samples taken from Cecilia's room also matched the DNA of Arinaitwe. Subsequently at an Identification parade, the bell boy identified Arinaitwe as the man whom he found in Cecilia's hotel room before she was murdered, hence squarely connecting him to the murder.
In 2003 Arinaitwe was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. However as he was waiting to suffer the death, he became a beneficiary of the landmark Supreme court judgement which abolished the death Penalty. In 2013 during a re-sentencing, the High court reduced the death sentence to Life Imprisonment. Arinaitwe appealed to the Court of appeal against the Sentence. The Court of Appeal set aside the sentence of Life Imprisonment and replaced it with Imprisonment for 24 years and 9 months to be served from the date he was convicted.
