A Ugandan judge who sits on a UN court has been convicted of enslaving a young woman while she was living in Oxford.
Lydia Mugambe, 49, took “advantage of her status” over her victim in the “most egregious way” by preventing her from holding down steady employment and forcing her to work as her maid, while providing childcare for free, prosecutors said.
She was found guilty on Thursday at Oxford crown court of conspiring to breach UK immigration law, people trafficking, modern slavery and conspiracy to intimidate a witness.
Mugambe collapsed in the dock as the guilty verdicts were read out and the judge ordered that the court be cleared after there were audible gasps in the public gallery. The Ugandan judge was escorted from the court by two dock officers.
Mugambe was appointed two years ago to the UN court that deals with residual matters from the criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
She is understood to be a PhD research student at Oxford’s law faculty while on sabbatical from her main role as a high court judge in Uganda.
At the trial, Caroline Haughey KC, for the prosecution, said that Mugambe had “exploited and abused” the victim by “taking advantage of her lack of understanding of her rights to properly paid employment and deceiving her as to the purpose of her coming to the UK”.
The jury accepted the prosecution’s case that Mugambe had engaged in “illegal folly” with John Leonard Mugerwa, who was Uganda’s deputy high commissioner in London.
The pair were found to have conspired to arrange for the young woman to come to the UK. Prosecutors said that Mugambe and Mugerwa had participated in a “very dishonest” trade-off.
Hellbound and Down 