Uganda military chief claims to hold opposition aide 'in his basement'

BSS
Published On: 02 May 2025, 15:08

KAMPALA, May 2, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Uganda's military chief claimed he had abducted the bodyguard of the country's main opposition leader Bobi Wine and was torturing him "in his basement" late Thursday, days after his party said he went missing.

Uganda has faced international condemnation over the abduction of opposition figures, most recently targeting another veteran opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was seized in Kenya last year and is facing treason charges back home.

General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is head of the army but also son of the long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni, shared a series of posts on X confirming the detention of Wine's bodyguard, Eddie Mutwe, saying, "I captured NUP's military commander like a grasshopper."

"He is in my basement...You are next," Kainerugaba, known for his notorious posts on X, responded to Wine after he posted about Mutwe's "abduction."

Wine, a former singer whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi has become the leading face of opposition to Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986.

On April 27, Wine's party, the National Unity Platform, said Mutwe was 'violently abducted' by armed men wearing uniforms associated with the Special Forces Command, an elite unit of Uganda's army.

Kainerugaba also alluded to Mutwe being tortured saying "I still have to castrate him."

"If they keep on provoking us, we shall discipline them even more," he said.

Earlier this year, the military chief threatened to behead Bobi Wine but later apologised for the post.

Wine lost to Museveni in the 2021 presidential election but denounced it as a "sham."

Kainerugaba is notorious for his unfiltered posts on X that have occasionally drawn Uganda into diplomatic spats.

In 2022, Museveni was forced to apologise for posts that appeared to threaten an invasion of Kenya.     
 

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