A Ugandan-American man was sentenced to death on Thursday over the murders of four young children he stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Uganda’s capital.
Christopher Okello Onyum was arrested on April 2 as he tried to flee the daycare centre in Kampala where he murdered the children aged 15 months to two-and-a-half years.
Prosecutors said Onyum, who holds Ugandan and US citizenship, confessed to the crime, believing the “human sacrifice” would help him become rich, though he eventually pleaded not guilty in court.
The judge rejected a claim of insanity, saying the “accurate and precise manner” of the killings made it clear it was pre-planned.
“I hereby sentence him to suffer death,” she said in the sentencing, to cheers from the public.
The court heard that Onyum had searched online for Islamic State beheadings and local schools with young children, but it was not clear if there was any political or religious motivation for the attack.
It earlier heard chilling testimony, including from a staff member at the Ggaba Early Childhood Development Centre.
“At first I thought he was beating a child, when I asked him why he was beating our children, before he responded I saw Kaisha (one of the victims) against a wall in the pool of blood,” she told the court at the start of the trial.
“He got up and he had a knife in his hand, he was so quick that he immediately grabbed another child. I got one of the bicycles the children used, I threw it at him.
“When I threw the bicycle at him he left the child and started running after me. I ran but I later fell down. When I got up I found out he had cut the second child.”
The victims’ parents also gave evidence, describing their last morning with their children before taking them to kindergarten, the phone call informing them of the attack and the discovery of the bodies at the hospital.
