Museveni orders Besigye ‘escape’ probe

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ordered an investigation into how opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye escaped house arrest prior to Museveni’s inauguration.

Kampala – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday ordered an investigation into how opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye escaped house arrest prior to Museveni’s Thursday inauguration.

Besigye’s dramatic escape last Wednesday from his home just outside Kampala, despite it being under tight military siege, preceded his umpteenth arrest in downtown Kampala as his followers thronged his car prompting riot police to disperse the crowds with clubs and teargas.

Following the escape Museveni ordered police chief Gen Kale Kayihura to investigate whether some of his top officers were involved in allowing the dramatic escape.

“Insider sources said the investigating team will include officers from the presidential guard unit called the Special Forces Command (SFC) and some officers from the Police Professional Standards Unit (PSU). The team has less than two weeks to report its findings,” reported The Observer.

More than 20 police officers deployed to guard the home of former presidential guard were arrested as part of the investigation

Following his arrest Besigye was flown to Moroto central government prison in north-eastern Uganda, where he had remained incarcerated for four days before being transferred to Luzira Prison in Kampala.

The former presidential candidate is now being charged with treason.

“It is the second time that Besigye has been charged with treason – first in 2005 ahead of the 2006 presidential elections and now in 2016 after the February 18 general elections,” reported the Monitor.

Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said an investigation team was assembling evidence in relation to disobedience of an interim court order that had barred Besigye and members of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) from holding activities under the defiance campaign.

The FDC also held a “counter inauguration” simultaneously as Museveni was being sworn in while Besigye released a statement last Tuesday calling for a “people’s government” to be formed in place of Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.

African News Agency