Ugandan UN judge jailed in Britain for more than six years for forced labour offence

LONDON (Reuters) -A Ugandan and United Nations judge was jailed in Britain for more than six years on Friday for forcing a young woman to work without pay while the judge studied at the University of Oxford.

Lydia Mugambe, a judge of Uganda's High Court since 2013, was appointed in 2023 to be a judge 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.

Prosecutors said Mugambe, 50, 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.

Mugambe was charged under the UK's Modern Slavery Act with conspiring with John Leonard Mugerwa, then Uganda's deputy high commissioner, to get the victim into Britain by lying on her visa application.

Mugambe was also charged with facilitating travel with a view to exploitation, forcing someone to work and conspiracy to intimidate her victim to stop her giving evidence.

She pleaded not guilty and told jurors at Oxford Crown Court that she had never exploited the woman, but was convicted of all four counts in March. Mugerwa did not face trial.

Judge David Foxton sentenced Mugambe to six years and four months in prison.

"You have shown absolutely no remorse for your conduct. Instead, you continue, wholly unjustifiably I am afraid, to depict yourself as the victim," Foxton said.

"As a qualified lawyer, a Ugandan High Court judge and a United Nations Criminal Tribunal judge, Lydia Mugambe understood the rule of law and chose to overlook it", Lynette Woodrow, national lead for modern slavery at the Crown Prosecution Service, said in a statement.

Uganda's High Commission in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals previously said it "will take all appropriate administrative actions to further protect the integrity and the proper and efficient functioning of the mechanism".

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Nia Williams)