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How the Scheme Worked
The scheme was more than one woman’s greed. Mugerwa’s involvement was self-serving: he expected influence in exchange. Mugambe, a Ugandan High Court judge, promised to intervene with a judge back home who was presiding over a case involving Mugerwa. That judge refused her calls, and Mugambe later admitted he “fears talking on the phone,” a statement the court cited as evidence she understood the contact was improper.
Mugerwa, meanwhile, faced no charges. Uganda refused to waive his diplomatic immunity, effectively shielding him despite his role in trafficking a young woman into forced labor.
Intimidation After Arrest
Mugambe did not stop after police intervention. She violated bail conditions, attempting to intimidate the victim into silence. She enlisted her niece, a legal researcher, the victim’s pastor, and even the victim’s mother to pressure her.
In one recovered message, Mugambe instructed the victim’s mother to “convince her to stop betraying us.” In another, she wrote that if the victim abandoned the case, “they have no case to take to court.” British authorities ignored these efforts.
On March 13, 2025, a jury at Oxford Crown Court convicted Mugambe on all four charges. At sentencing in May, the judge called her “thoroughly dishonest,” noting her complete lack of remorse and her continued self-victimization. She received six years and four months behind bars and was ordered to pay her victim $15,300.
The victim, who endured months of isolation without documents or contact with family in Uganda, was granted asylum in the UK.
The UN’s Role in the Scandal
Mugambe wasn’t a marginal figure. She held a fellowship at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights — the same institution known for lecturing Americans about justice — and received the Vera Chirwa Human Rights Award in 2019. In May 2023, she was appointed a judge on the UN’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the successor to the Rwanda genocide tribunal.
By then, British police had already investigated her home. By July 2024, the UN quietly removed her from tribunal duties without explanation, erasing her profile from their website.
Peter Gallo, a former UN investigator, summed up the organization bluntly: it is “riddled with corruption from bottom to top.” The UN entrusted someone actively running a slave operation in Oxford to judge war crimes. This wasn’t a bad apple — it was the barrel.
