According to a complaint filed by the state prosecution office in December 2022, Nicholas Spencer and his wife Mackenzie Leigh Spencer reportedly tortured and imprisoned a 10-year-old child in a small, chilly room without clothes between 2020 and 2022.
The American couple was remanded in custody on Tuesday by an Ugandan court after they were accused of child trafficking. If found guilty, they could receive a life sentence.
The pair will return to court on February 2 to hear the status of the state’s investigation, according to the couple’s attorney, David Mpanga.
”It has been adjourned to the 2nd of February and we will be here to hear the status of the investigation and when the case will be ready for committal to the High Court,” Moanga said.
He added, “They are charged with aggravated trafficking and aggravated torture. The aggravated trafficking charge is only triable in the high court so the case today was for the court to monitor the progress of the investigation and to determine when the state will be ready to commit them to the High Court.”
The boy is one of the three children adopted by the spencer family, who arrived in Uganda in 2017 to volunteer at a US-based nonprofit in the town of Jinja before moving to Naguru, an upmarket suburb of Kampala, to work in a start-up.