Uganda: Pentecostal pastor convicted of child ritual sacrifice and human trafficking
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
Pentecostal pastor
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The pastor invoked a claimed spiritual instruction (a dream from his 'spiritual father') to organize the abduction and ritual killing of a child for the purpose of increasing his church's wealth and power; Ugandan law classifies human sacrifice as trafficking exploitation.
- Prophecy or divine command
- Ritual, oath, or initiation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2023-08-01 · conviction and sentence
Jinja High Court, Uganda. Pentecostal pastor Joseph Sserubiri lured a 4-year-old girl from her home and ritually killed her, claiming a spiritual instruction to sacrifice a child to expand his church's wealth and power. The Jinja High Court convicted him of murder and human trafficking (human sacrifice is statutorily classed as trafficking exploitation under Uganda's 2009 Act) and sentenced him to life plus 30 years.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- claimed spiritual instruction to sacrifice a child for church wealth/power
- abduction for ritual purposes
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Pastor jailed for life over child sacrifice', Daily Monitor (Uganda), Aug. 2023.
The Daily Monitor reports the Jinja High Court's conviction of pastor Sserubiri for murder and human trafficking and the life-plus-30-years sentence.
- institutional reporting disposition corroboration 'Pastor's Conviction Highlights Uganda's Growing Problem Of Ritual Sacrifice', Religion Unplugged, 27 Aug. 2023.
Corroborates the conviction and the ritual-sacrifice motive.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/pastor-jailed-for-life-over-child-sacrifice-4323866 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 97e3cf4436d960067b1f6cd5b2119e4fa7e95576c8b2c204eab65988a8c51d32
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
- Source and tier basis
- https://religionunplugged.com/news/2023/8/27/ritual-sacrifice-uganda-pastor-joseph-sserubiri-convicted-of-murder-and-human-trafficking Corpus classification: institutional-reporting; evidentiary role: disposition-corroboration. SHA-256 614b57bc9ee881eb5ec5479fe3cb798d2af826f92f566fceafb735f631423ff8
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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