Uganda's ICT Minister Chris Bary Omunsi has alleged that Uganda and Kenya’s Governments were in touch in the arrest of Uganda’s opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye.
In a video seen by The Star, the ICT Minister has been heard saying there ought to be a reason why the two governments collaborated to actualise the arrest.
“Dr Kizza Besigye was arrested and the government of Uganda was in touch with the government of Kenya, otherwise how would you arrest someone in the middle of Nairobi and then bring them back to Uganda without the full knowledge and support of the Kenyan state?”
He said the events leading to the arrest of the opposition leader were solely dependent on intel received by the people who arrested him.
Contrary to the Ugandan official’s statement, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Sing’oei Korir said Kenya had no role in Besigye’s alleged arrest or deportation on Wednesday.
“There is no reason whatsoever for Kenya to be a party in his arrest, if any,” Korir said.
Besigye has been Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni competitor in four presidential elections and lost each time. Besigye has, however, always rejected the results.
On Wednesday, Besigye's wife, Winnie Byanyima, said her husband had been kidnapped in Nairobi on Saturday at an apartment complex on Riverside Drive.
According to Besigye’s family, he was abducted in Nairobi while preparing to grace a book launch by Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua and taken to Uganda, where the military is allegedly detaining him.
Besigye was traced to a military detention centre after he went missing in Nairobi on Saturday, November 16.
His disappearance follows the July 23 arrest of 36 Ugandan activists associated with him in Kisumu before they were shipped to Uganda.
Byanyima who is the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), on Wednesday, asked Uganda's military to release the opposition leader from military detention in Kampala where he's reportedly being held.
Besigye was remanded after being charged with offences relating to security, illegal possession of two pistols and illegal possession of eight rounds of ammunition.
