By Hamza Kyeyune
KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - Uganda’s missing opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been arrested and will appear later Wednesday before an army court, according to an official.
The veteran opposition leader went missing during the weekend in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi where he had traveled for personal reasons.
Uganda People’s Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Felix Kulayigye confirmed the arrest.
Erias Lukwago, the lead counsel for Besigye and honorary mayor of Kampala, said a legal team has set up camp at the Makindye military barracks.
Winnie Byanyima, Besigye’s wife and executive director of UN AIDS, pushed for her husband’s release from military custody.
“I request the government of Uganda to release my husband, Dr. Kizza Besigye, from where he is being held immediately,” she wrote on X. "He was kidnapped last Saturday while he was in Nairobi for Hon. Martha Karua’s book launch. I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala. We, his family and his lawyers, demand to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”
Military police officers have been deployed in and around the court premises, with access to the facility restricted.
Journalists have been ordered to remain outside the court as they await instructions on whether they would be allowed into the court premises or the courtroom.
Besigye, once the personal doctor to President Yoweri Museveni, later became an opposition leader. He has recently been arrested multiple times.
Besigye's disappearance in Nairobi followed the July 23 arrest of a group of 36 Ugandan opposition members in Kenya on alleged terrorism charges.
The group, affiliated with the Forum for Democratic Change, one of Uganda’s major opposition parties, had traveled to Kenya for a retreat, where they were reportedly abducted during a conference before being brought back to Uganda.
The group on Wednesday was granted cash bail of nearly $20,000 by Uganda’s High Court's international crimes division.
The case has sparked debate about the handling of terrorism charges and regional security cooperation between Kenya and Uganda, with many questioning the motivation behind the arrests.