Gulu High Court sets Friday for judgment on burial of Lakwena’s father

Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The High Court in Gulu has scheduled a ruling for Friday, October 4, regarding the burial of Severino Okoya Kiberu, a self-styled prophet and father of former Holy Spirit Movement rebel leader Alice Lakwena. Okoya passed away on July 13 at his home in Pece-Laroo Division, Gulu City, after a brief battle with prostate cancer.

His burial was postponed due to a temporary injunction issued by the Gulu High Court in August, stemming from a dispute among his siblings and family members over the location of his final resting place. The injunction issued by George Obong, the Gulu High Court Deputy Registrar followed a petition filed by Okoya’s eldest daughter Doreen Adokorach through her lawyer Donge and Co Advocates.

Adokorach claimed her father left a will on March 19, 2024, indicating his body be buried in Pabit village in Oding Parish, Unyama Sub- County in case he dies. Her other family members however objected and instead wanted Okoya’s Body to be buried in Panyikworo village in Bungatira Sub-County. While the court had granted an opportunity for mediation among the family members, the move failed after the family failed to come to a common term.

This prompted George Obong, the Deputy Registrar of the Gulu High Court of the high court to push the matter for hearing before the high court judge. On Tuesday, the plaintiff through her lawyer Sylvester Donge and the respondents represented by their defence lawyer Paul Layoo appeared before the Gulu High Court Resident Judge George Okello for a hearing of the case.

Donge told the court Tuesday that the deceased before his death on March 19 this year wrote a will leaving instruction to his daughter to have his body buried at his home in Unyama Sub-County. The plaintiff’s lawyer also in a rejoinder presented a new document purportedly signed by the deceased in 2015 instructing his family to bury him at his home in Unyama sub-county.

But Paul Layoo, the respondent’s defense lawyer argued that the new document had never been tendered in court at the time the plaintiff filed an injunction and wondered about its authenticity since the deceased wasn’t a resident of Uyama Sub-County at the time. He also argued that the March 19 document purportedly signed by the deceased as his will is questionable since he was severely sick at the time and unconscious.

Layoo asked the court to dismiss the matter and allow the family members to bury the remains of Okoya according to the Acholi tradition and at his ancestral home where his wife and daughter Alice Lakwena were buried respectively in 2020 and 2007.

Justice Okello consequently adjourned the matter till October 4 when the parties return to court to receive judgment. Severino Okoya Kiberu was the founder of the New Jerusalem International Tabernacle Ministries, a church located in Gulu City with branches across the Acholi Sub-region that used both the Bible and Quran in prayer sessions.

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