The first case to be brought against a gay man in Uganda under the East African country’s draconian “Kill the Gays” law has been dismissed, according to his lawyer.

On Monday, a judge dismissed the landmark prosecution under the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, saying the accused was “mentally unstable and does not understand the trial process,” Douglas Mawadri told AFP.

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“The magistrate discontinued the case upon finding that the accused is of unsound mind after a long detention on remand,” he said.

The defendant spent 350 days in prison as his case moved through the courts.

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Just months after the Anti-Homosexuality Act was signed into law by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni in 2023, the now 25-year-old unnamed defendant was accused of “aggravated homosexuality” for engaging in “unlawful sexual intercourse with… (a) male adult aged 41.”

Under the law, the death penalty is applicable in cases considered “aggravated,” which include repeat offenses of homosexuality, sex that transmits a terminal illness, or same-sex intercourse with a minor, an elderly person, or a person with disabilities. 

Prosecutors didn’t specify why the act was considered aggravated, but in January 2024, the charges were amended to “unnatural offenses of having carnal knowledge against the order of nature,” which carries a sentence of life imprisonment.

Ahead of the dismissal, the defendant’s counsel argued that the man developed psychosis and schizophrenia as a result of his detention. The decision was delivered orally in court; a written opinion is scheduled to follow.

Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist Richard Lusimbo said the dismissal was “a major breakthrough which should have come out earlier.”

“Detaining someone for over a year without trial is injustice at its worst,” he said.

The court proceedings lasted more than two years.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed by the Ugandan parliament in March 2023. All but two of the Christian-majority nation’s 389 members of parliament voted for the bill.

The bill’s passage and signing into law drew international condemnation, including a halt to all lending in Uganda by the World Bank, travel warnings from the U.S. State Department, and a denunciation by Pope Francis.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act is the second Kill the Gays law to be enacted in the country in as many decades. The first version passed in 2014 but was later overturned by Uganda’s High Court.

The second was written and shepherded through Parliament by lawmakers with close ties to the Arizona-based Family Watch International. The American organization is committed to spreading its anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion stances around the world, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The group has been at work proselytizing among Ugandan lawmakers since 2009.

In November, Anita Among, the current Speaker of the Uganda Parliament and one of the Anti-Homosexuality Act’s strongest proponents, introduced a new law in Parliament that would criminalize the act of identifying as LGBTQ+.

The measure mandates punishment of up to 10 years in prison for any person who “holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female.”

The bill also criminalizes the “promotion” of homosexuality and “abetting” and “conspiring” to engage in same-sex relations.

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