Editor,

RE: "Husband charged with murder of city pastor” (The New Times, October 5).

We should be careful when reporting on legal matters. Autopsy can reveal that the cause of death was strangulation but it cannot confirm that the principle suspect is guilty. I do not also think that at this stage the prosecutor can categorically confirm that Drake Mugisha did it.

Law is very complex. Thanks to DNA, in countries such as United States, every year we continue to hear of people who are being released from prison after spending 10 or even more years in jail for murder or homicides they did not commit.

I am not saying that Mr Mugisha is innocent, all I am saying is that at this stage, we do not know and even the prosecutor cannot confirm that.

Semukanya

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Very true. Until the prosecution’s case is presented and passes challenges from the accused’s defence in court, all we have now is no more than theorizing and supposition, including the autopsy conclusion that her death was by strangulation rather than from natural causes.

Expert conclusions are not infallible and have been found defective in very many instances, everywhere.

The only incontrovertible fact in the case for now is the tragedy of a mother, a wife, a sister dead in the prime of life, a husband and father in jail awaiting trial as the suspect for the alleged crime; and broken relationships everywhere we look.

Whether the husband is found guilty, and sentenced for causing her death, the bottom line is a tragedy for a Rwandan family.

Mwene Kalinda