Police in Nwoya are holding a 47-year-old man for allegedly defiling a five-year-old girl at Onyomtil B Village in Ywaya Parish, Anaka Sub-county.
The suspect has been identified as David Ocitti, a resident of the same village.
The single mother to the minor told our reporter that Ocitti defiled her daughter when she was away from home on 17 this month at around 1pm.
“I went to buy dry cassava that I usually vend and left the victim with two other siblings aged 4 and 10 years alone at home never expecting this horrific incident to happen. I just got the information while coming back home when I met the Koyo Mulila sub-village chief, Nelson Omona, who broke into tears before disclosing the incident to me. Immediately, I sensed that there was a problem at home perhaps involving loss of life,” the victim’s mother said.
The mother said when she reached home, she found her daughter missing and when she asked for her whereabouts, only to be told that she had been taken to the village chairperson’s home to where she immediately rushed and found her bleeding from her private parts.
The mother said she bought the piece of land where she lives with her children last month wondering that even the alleged defiler was among the witnesses in the transaction; little expecting him to do such a monstrous act.
“It’s a nightmare that will live in me for a good period of time. I have just been here for two weeks and I bought this land in April 2021 from the suspect’s family members and he was also part of the witnesses. I never expected him to be such a heartless person,” she said.
According to the Village Chairperson, Helen Arach, Ocitti purportedly committed the offence in a grass-thatched hut when the minor’s parents were away from home.
Ms Arach told our reporter that Ocitti seduced the girl with a sweet into the hut from where he defiled and tore her private parts.
The chairperson said they learnt of the ordeal when the girl started crying in pain and when inquired, she said that she had been defiled by Ocitti.
Ms Arach said that on being interrogated, Ocitti confessed to having committed the offence.
“I was just called on phone at around 1pm and immediately rushed to the scene. Upon reaching there, I found the victim bleeding from her private part. She immediately led me to the dilapidated grass-thatched hut with items littered everywhere in the room. It was there that she was forced into the sexual act,” the chairperson said.
Ms Arach said that she immediately reported the matter to the police adding that examinations carried out on both the defiled and defiler at Anaka General Hospital revealed that the minor was sexually abused.
When contacted, the Aswa River Regional Police Spokesperson, ASP David Ongom Mudong, confirmed the report saying a case of aggravated defilement has been registered at Nwoya police station under vide CRB 347/2021.
The police officer said that Ocitti will be charged with aggravated defilement once investigations are complete.
The law
Section 129 of the Penal Code Act stipulates that any person who performs a sexual act with another person who is below the age of 18 years commits a felony known as defilement, and is on conviction liable to life imprisonment.
Ocitti’s previous criminal record
In the early 2000s when people were still living in the former Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camp, Ocitti was also arrested and jailed for defiling a minor. He was later released upon serving his sentence, according to Mr Sam Okello, Ocitti’s nephew.
Mr Okello explained that his uncle has for all the years been in a wobbling marriage life, without a stable wife; attributing it to laziness and his ever begging lifestyle.
He revealed that Ocitti has never constructed his own house but instead sleeps in any of the abundant grass-thatched huts around at home.
“Which woman do you think can tolerate such a lazy man? It’s for that matter why for good years he has been without a wife,” Mr Okello said.
