Police arrest and whisk Kizza Besigye to unknown place

SOURCE: T

Detectives commanded by Kira Road DPC James Akiiki Ruhweza intercepted the politician at a check a few metres outside his home shortly after 8am.

Dr Besigye had just started a trek to work in defiance of police order when he was arrested together with two of his aides. Our Reporter John Njoroge says Besigye was given three options; to return to his house, drive out to work in his car or be arrested. “You can arrest me if you want,” Mr Njoroge quotes Besigye as telling police.

Officers immediately bundled him into a waiting police van and he was whisked to Kasangati Police station. Journalists following the developments were barred from accessing the station. Shortly afterward, the van raced out on the Kasangati-Kyanja-Ntinda route and vanished from sight of journalists in Ntinda trading centre, a city suburb.

Our reporter says he has checked Kira Police Station, the Naguru-based Special Investigations Unit offices and Rapid Response Unit command centre in Kireka as well as Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) Kibuli headquarters and there is no word at all the places about the trio’s whereabouts.

The Forum for Democratic Change party leader was until last week confined to his house by police under what the Force called ‘preventive arrest’.

A magistrate ruled that the confinement was unconstitutional since Dr Besigye’s home is not a gazzetted detention centre as stipulated in the laws, and restraining him for more than 48 hours without being arraigned in court violated his rights to fair treatment under the Constitution.

Dr Besigye had told journalists at a press conference on Friday that he will continue walking to work whether the Activists-for-Change engineered protest trek is in place or not because “it is my right to walk”