UNAIDS chief says husband, Ugandan opposition figure, ‘kidnapped’

Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye speaks as he holds a press conference on December 22, 2017 at his office in Kampala. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

GENEVA — Kizza Besigye, a major Ugandan opposition figure, was “kidnapped” in Kenya and is being held in a Kampala military jail, his wife, a top UN official, said Tuesday.

Winnie Byanyima, head of UNAIDS, demanded on X that the government of Uganda “release my husband Dr. Kizza Besigye from where he is being held immediately”.

Besigye, a medical doctor and opposition politician, “was kidnapped last Saturday while he was in Nairobi” to attend a book launch by Kenyan politician Martha Karua, she said.

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Her statement came after media in Uganda reported the disappearance of Besigye, a former unsuccessful presidential candidate against Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African nation with an iron fist since 1986.

“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” Byanyima said.

“We his family and his lawyers demand to see him.”

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She stressed that Besigye, who has been arrested numerous times in the past, “is not a soldier”.

“Why is he being held in a military jail?”