A former inmate says he was wrongly declared HIV positive while in police custody, enrolled on ARVs, and later cleared after repeated tests—after nearly five years behind bars.
A man from Buikwe district says he endured years of stigma and imprisonment after police allegedly used a hospital test to build a case against him—despite later results showing he was HIV negative.
The case, involving Simon Peter Longoli, began on September 27, 2020, when he was living in Kitega, Lugazi municipality, Buikwe district and working at Tembo Steels. He said he only stepped in to help when he found people fighting by the roadside, trying to separate them like any passer-by would.
From a street fight to a new charge
He said police charged him with aggravated defamation of a juvenile, pointing to an alleged victim who was also reportedly in custody at the same police station. Longoli argued that the accusation made no sense because he was still a detainee under police watch at the time.
How the HIV test became part of his case
Longoli said he protested, insisting he was not sick.. But he added that the results were handed to police and then treated as part of his police file.. That afternoon, he was taken back to the Lugazi Magistrate’s Court, where fresh charges were read to him—aggravated defilement—according to the court account described in his narrative.
He was then remanded to Nakifuma Government Prison. The very next day, October 20, 2020, Longoli said he was enrolled on Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs based on police-provided documentation, without what he described as a fresh prison test.
ARVs, stigma and the weight of a wrong label
He said other inmates—and even some officers—treated him differently once the HIV label spread.. His family, he added, gradually pulled away after believing the story that he had HIV.. In his account, the man who entered prison healthy was later “broken in body and spirit,” not only by confinement but also by an identity he said was imposed on him.
Longoli’s movements between facilities followed: from Nakifuma to Kitalya MiniMax in December 2020, then to Nakasongola Government Prison in June 2021. In each new place, he said medical teams listened to his story and ordered tests.
Repeated negative tests—and a court turning point
He said the turning point came on July 2, 2022, when the Resident Judge of Mukono, David Batema, visited Upper Prison with other officials, including the Deputy Registrar and the Regional DPP.. Longoli told the judge the full account—how the case, he claimed, was fabricated while he was in custody and how the HIV results were false or mishandled.
In response, Longoli said the judge ordered another HIV test.. He was taken under escort to Murchison Bay for sampling, and the results returned negative.. A formal court order for re-examination was issued on July 13, 2022, and physician teams later confirmed he was HIV negative again, according to Longoli’s account.. He said his file was subsequently sent to the DPP’s office in Kampala.
Plea sessions, sentencing, and release
Later, in July 2023, during a major plea-bargaining camp, his file again came up.. Even after he protested, Longoli said the court sentenced him to six years.. He filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal against both conviction and sentence in 2024, but by the time it was being processed, his sentence had nearly run its course.
On September 24 last year, he said he walked out of prison as a free man—after nearly five years for what he maintains was a crime he did not commit and a disease he never had. He described losing everything, including a rental room, and said he had to rebuild his life from scratch.
His message, he said, is meant for people still inside prison: that some inmates may be convicted due to ignorance, poverty, and systems that do not listen.. For MISRYOUM, the story lands as a reminder that labels—whether medical or criminal—can change how someone is treated for years, long before any court fully catches up.