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The wife of Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye says he has been kidnapped in neighbouring Kenya and sent back home where he is being held in a military jail.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, Winnie Byanyima wrote that her husband had been seized in Kenya’s capital Nairobi last Saturday during a book launch event.<\/p>\n
“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” she said, demanding that the government of Uganda release her husband.<\/p>\n
Army spokesperson Felix Kulayigye told the Uganda Radio Network agency that he would be arraigned at a court later.<\/p>\n
He did not expressly state if the military was holding him.<\/p>\n
BBC News has asked the Ugandan government for comment.<\/p>\n
Uganda’s Daily Monitor newspaper reported that senior members of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party had gathered at Makindye military court in Kampala, expecting him to appear there.<\/p>\n
Kenya’s state-funded human rights body, KNHRC has condemned “any form of abduction of those people who seek asylum in our country”.<\/p>\n
Besigye, 68, led the FDC, contesting and losing four presidential elections against incumbent Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.<\/p>\n
“We his family and his lawyers demand to see him,” his wife wrote on X.<\/p>\n
“He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”<\/p>\n
Ms Byanyima is a human rights advocate and executive director of Unaids, the joint UN programme set up to eradicate Aids.<\/p>\n
Besigye used to be Museveni’s personal doctor but went on to become an opposition leader and has referred to the leader of the east African country as a “dictator”.<\/p>\n
He has alleged that previous presidential elections were rigged – a claim denied by the government.<\/p>\n
The opposition figure has been arrested on numerous occasions in the past.<\/p>\n
On one occasion he was shot in the hand, on another he suffered eye injuries after being doused in pepper spray.<\/p>\n
The authorities have accused him of provoking them, and he has been charged with inciting violence.<\/p>\n
Kenyan rights groups have voiced their concerns recently after a spate of forced deportations from the country, once regarded as a safe haven for refugees from across the region, and further afield.<\/p>\n
Last month, four Turkish refugees were abducted by masked men at gunpoint in Nairobi and sent back to Turkey.<\/p>\n
In July, 36 Ugandan opposition supporters who had travelled to the Kenyan city of Kisumu were deported without proper legal procedures, according to their lawyers.<\/p>\n