UGANDAN UN JUDGE CONVICTED OVER FORCED LABOUR IN BRITAIN

A Ugandan judge with the United Nations has been convicted in Britain forcing a young woman to work as a slave while she studied for a PhD at Oxford University. Judge Lydia Mugambe was appointed in 2023 for the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which performs functions of previous tribunals relating to war crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. British Prosecutors said Mugambe, 49, used her status in the "most egregious way" by tricking a young Ugandan woman to come to Britain in 2022 to work as a maid without payment. Prosecutor Caroline Haughey told jurors at Oxford Crown Court that Judge Mugambe used her knowledge and power to deceive the woman into coming to the UK, taking advantage of her naivety to deceive and induce her into working for her for nothing. Mugambe was charged under the UK's modern slavery act with conspiring with a former Uganda’s deputy high commissioner, John Leonard Mugerwa, to facilitate the commission of a breach of immigration law. The Prosecutors said Mugambe and Mugerwa, who was not on trial, provided false information that the woman would work at the High Commission in order to bring her into the country. Uganda's High Commission in London and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.