Ugandan opposition figure collapses in court, party official says

NAIROBI, July 29 - Prominent detained Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye collapsed on Wednesday while attending a court session in the capital Kampala where he is on trial for treason, a senior official in his party said.

Besigye, 70, has been in custody since November 2024 after he was detained together with his aide Obeid Lutale in neighbouring Kenya and both were repatriated to Uganda where they were subsequently charged with treason.

They denied the charges and party officials and their lawyers have described the charges as politically motivated. Multiple attempts to be released on bail have been denied.

"Besigye collapsed ... he was just standing and he suddenly collapsed. After some time an ambulance came and they took him away but we don't know where he has been taken," Harold Kaija, a senior official in Besigye's party People's Front for Freedom (PFF), told Reuters.

Prisons spokesperson Frank Baine did not pick up a call seeking comment while judiciary spokesperson, Ereemye Mawanda, said he was unable to comment because he did not have information on the incident yet.

Besigye's detention has fuelled anger among local and international human rights activists and the Commonwealth has called for his release.

Critics of President Yoweri Museveni, 81, say Besigye's continued detention is an example of rampant human rights violations in the country, including crackdowns on opposition leaders and critics.

Bobi Wine, who leads Uganda's largest opposition party and who was Museveni's main opponent in the last elections in January, has fled to the United States.

In February, Besigye was briefly hospitalised after he went on a hunger strike protesting his detention, and in April his wife, Winnie Byanyima, told rights group Amnesty International that "his health is not that good."

Besigye has been pressing the government to restore his defence team after the lead attorney, Martha Karua, a Kenyan, was declared persona non grata while another senior lawyer on the team, Erias Lukwago, was detained and charged with misprision of treason. He remains in custody. REUTERS