‘Kidnapped’ Uganda opposition figure Besigye expected at Makindye military court: lawyer

Leading Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye is due to appear before a military court on Wednesday, his lawyer said, after his reported abduction in neighbouring Kenya.

“The latest information we have is Besigye is in military cells in Kampala and the army is planning to produce him in the General Court Martial today,” one of Besigye’s lawyers, Erias Lukwago, told intimated, quoting sources within the military.

“We are yet to establish the charges against him,” he added.

“Besigye is no stranger to appearing in the military courts on several charges even after he retired from the army and is now a civilian.”

Besigye’s wife Winnie Byanyima, the head of UNAIDS, said on X that her husband, a medical doctor, had been kidnapped in the Kenyan capital Nairobi at the weekend.

Besigye, an ally turned foe of iron-fisted veteran President Yoweri Museveni, has tried unsuccessfully four times since 2001 to unseat him in presidential elections but all in vain.

Besigye “was kidnapped last Saturday while he was in Nairobi” to attend a book launch by Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua, Byanyima said.

“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail at Makindye military barracks in Kampala,” she said of her 68-year-old husband.

“We his family and his lawyers demand to see him.”

Ugandan government spokesman Chris Baryomunsi told menyioned earlier that the authorities were “cross-checking” the reports of Besigye’s disappearance, adding that “at the moment we can’t confirm his whereabouts.

“We are in touch with the security agencies here and in Kenya to get the correct information.”

In July, 36 members of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) — the party Besigye founded two decades ago — were deported from Kenya and put on trial in Uganda on terrorism charges.

They were freed on bail last month.

After their arrest, Besigye claimed that the 36 “were illegally detained and sneaked back from Kenya”.

Bobi Wine, another prominent opposition leader who has frequently found himself targeted by the authorities, demanded Besigye’s release.

“It is very shocking that Kenya, which used to be a safer haven for (Ugandan) dissidents, is now increasingly becoming an operational zone for the state in Uganda,” he said on X.

Besigye has broken away from the FDC, forming a new party earlier this year called the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF).

Phillip Wafula Oguttu, a leading figure in the new party who was also in the FDC, said the disappearance of Besigye was “not surprising” following the alleged abduction of the opposition party members in Kenya.

“We have been trying to reach out to him but his phone is inaccessible since Saturday,” he told AFP.

“Our conclusion is this is a confirmed case of abduction,” he added. “We pray wherever he is, he is safe.”

Sources say that Besigye had been extradited back into the country and was being held at makindye military barracks and is due for court appearence todat wednesday.

Credit: AFP, Citizen Digital