The Katonga-based political leadership of People’s Front For Freedom(PFF)on Monday marked one year since the detention of opposition figure Dr Kizza Besigye and his colleague Alhajji Obed Lutale, with senior counsel Erias Lukwago delivering a detailed account of what he described as “a harrowing year of state capture, torture, and an attempted assassination plot.” Speaking […]
The Katonga-based political leadership of People’s Front For Freedom(PFF)on Monday marked one year since the detention of opposition figure Dr Kizza Besigye and his colleague Alhajji Obed Lutale, with senior counsel Erias Lukwago delivering a detailed account of what he described as “a harrowing year of state capture, torture, and an attempted assassination plot.”
Speaking at a commemorative gathering in Kampala, Lukwago said the past 12 months have exposed “the total collapse of the constitutional order” and the “state capture of all institutions” charged with protecting rights and enforcing the rule of law.
Lukwago said that throughout the year-long legal battles, no court, commission, or human rights body had issued an order in favour of Besigye or Lutale.
“For this one year, Dr Besigye and Obed Lutale have been on remand. There isn’t even a single court order we have received in our favour. Not one. Nothing from the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Parliament, or any other state or non-state agency,” he said.
He added that despite multiple applications, including bail petitions, constitutional references, and appeals to regional bodies, “nothing has come to the rescue of Dr Besigye and Obed Lutale.”
According to Lukwago, the duo’s arrest was part of a wider plan to eliminate Besigye.
He said intelligence gathered from Kenya and Uganda indicated that Besigye was held in a military facility for three nights after his abduction from Riverside Apartments in Nairobi, before being arraigned before the General Court Martial.
Lukwago claimed that senior military officials had openly spoken of plans to execute Besigye on Heroes Day, June 9, using a tree they had allegedly “preserved” in Iguru.
“They said they were going to execute him on Heroes Day. They had identified a tree in Iguru where they planned to tie him and subject him to a firing squad,” he said.
He added that the alleged plot was motivated by President Museveni’s succession plan, which Besigye has opposed for decades.
“Museveni is building a dynasty. Dr Besigye has been the face of the transition struggle away from gun rule and family rule. That is why they wanted him eliminated,” Lukwago said.
Lukwago described Besigye as “a political juggernaut” whose absence has created a vacuum felt across the political landscape.
“The void is felt by all of us. Even the CDF knows how indomitable Dr Besigye is when it comes to fighting dictatorship,” he said.
The lawyer detailed the conditions Besigye faced in detention, including what he termed as torture, deprivation, and denial of medical care.
At one point, he said, Besigye nearly died during a hunger strike aimed at protesting his illegal detention without a valid remand warrant.
Lukwago narrated how, during a court appearance before Justice Douglas Singiza, even the judge was alarmed at Besigye’s deteriorating state.
“He looked at him and said, ‘He is in a terrible health condition. Take him back lest he dies in my court.’ Instead of sending him to hospital, they returned him to prison in a truck,” Lukwago said.
He added that Parliament’s Human Rights Committee later visited Besigye’s cell but offered no remedy despite witnessing the conditions firsthand.
Besigye was later briefly transferred to a private medical facility in Bukoto before his cases were moved from the General Court Martial to civilian court.
Lukwago also outlined what he called a pattern of judicial manipulation:
Justice Comfort Kanya declined to grant bail even after acknowledging Besigye met all requirements.
A second bail application was redirected from one Justice Serunkuma to Justice Emmanuel Baguma unexpectedly.
Justice Baguma, he said, denied Besigye mandatory bail, arguing that time spent on remand under the Court Martial “does not count.”
“If you ask Justice Baguma today whether Dr Besigye has spent a year in jail, he would say no, according to his mathematics. Yet he had spent more than eight months by then,” Lukwago said.
He said multiple applications including for recusal, constitutional interpretation, and case transfer, had all been dismissed without justification.
Efforts at the East African Court of Justice were also “frustrated by machinations from this regime,” he added.
Lukwago recounted chaotic incidents at the General Court Martial, including the brutal arrest of their colleague, counsel Aaron Kiiza, who was allegedly grabbed, beaten, and detained by masked military personnel during one of the sessions.
He said this marked a turning point in their resolve to dismantle the Court Martial’s grip on civilian trials.
Lukwago said the abduction on November 16 will remain a day of “infamy.”
At the time of the arrest, he said, there was no official statement from either Uganda or Kenya, and the search for Besigye was like “a wild goose chase.”
“We moved without a clue about their whereabouts until we learned they had been held in a military facility for three nights,” he said.
Attempts to deliver a protest note to the Kenyan High Commission were violently blocked, with several leaders arrested and charged with “nuisance.”
