Besigye, Lutale legally detained — AG

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The Attorney General has insisted that four-time presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye and his aide, Hajj Obeid Lutale, are under legal detention at Luzira Prisons.

The assertions were made by Senior State Attorney, Johnson Kimera Natuhwera, on February 19, 2025, at the High Court during a session to hear the habeas corpus application filed by the duo’s lawyers protesting their continued incarceration.

The court was presided over by Douglas Karekona Singiza.

“The applicants are in detention legally and anyone can visit them while in prison. However, ordering their release is in contempt of the Supreme Court decision,” he submitted.

Natuhwera explained that the justices of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, did not order the release of the applicants but directed that all pending criminal cases against civilians and soldiers at the military courts must be transferred to the civilian courts.

This followed an application filed by the lawyers seeking orders to compel the Government to unconditionally release Besigye and Lutale.

The development comes after the Supreme Court on January 31, this year, outlawed the trial of civilians in military courts.

The verdict came at a time when Besigye and Lutale, who are accused of unlawfully possessing firearms and ammunition, were scheduled to return to the General Court Martial (GCM) on February 3.

But the two, who are also battling offences relating to security, did not appear because the GCM did not sit.

Through Lukwago and Company Advocates, Besigye and Lutale want the Civil Division of the High Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus (production warrant) requiring government servants and agents to produce them before the court dead or alive, for appropriate orders.

The lawyers filed an application against the Attorney General and Commissioner General of Prisons. Besigye’s wife, Winnie Byanyima, and Proscovia Kunihira, one of Besigye’s lawyers, swore affidavits supporting the application.

Affidavit

In her application, Byanyima, who is also the executive director of UNAIDS, contends that Besigye and Lutale were on November 16, last year, abducted from Riverside Nairobi, Kenya, where they had been invited for a book launch by former Kenyan justice minister, Martha Karua. Karua is now Besigye’s lead lawyer.

“After the duo was arrested, they were driven back to Uganda against their will and without due process,” Byanyima states.

Byanyima asserts that after being held incommunicado for three days at Makindye Military barracks in Kampala, Besigye and Lutale were arraigned before the GCM and charged with offences relating to security and unlawful possession of firearms.

At the GCM, the two contested the court’s powers and jurisdiction to try them, but were remanded to Luzira Prison.

Byanyima contends that Besigye and Lutale's continued detention is unlawful because the Supreme Court ordered the GCM to immediately cease trial of cases involving civilians and transfer their files to competent civilian courts.

The verdict stopping the trial of civilians in the GCM followed a petition filed by former Nakawa Member of Parliament Michael Kabaziguruka, who challenged his trial at the military court on treason charges in July 2021.

Byanyima contends that Besigye and Lutale are being detained illegally by the Government and that their continued detention tantamounts to infringement upon their right to personal liberty.

The prosecution alleges that between October 2023 and November 2024, Besigye, Lutale, and others still at large held meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, Athens, Greece, and Nairobi, Kenya, to solicit logistical support and identify military targets in Uganda with the intent to prejudice the security of the defence forces.

Prosecution also alleges that Besigye and Lutale on November 16, 2024, while at Riverside Apartments in Nairobi, were found in unlawful possession of pistols, model 27 KAL number 765 and pistol HB 1014 1953, respectively, as well as ammunition, which is ordinarily the monopoly of the defence forces.   

High Court judge Singiza said he will give his ruling by February 25, 2025.