Why Martha Karua’s day in court for Besigye hangs in balance

“I applied for a special practicing licence in Uganda.My application was re-ceived and stamped on Thursday, November 28, and I have not received an answer. But I'm very hopeful that to-
morrow (today) they will grant me the licence,” Ms Karua, who heads Kenya’s Opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party, told
Daily Monitor in an exclusive interview yesterday.

“The Law Society of Kenya wrote to them (ULC) that I am an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya,conferred with a rank of Senior Counsel and holding a valid practicing licence in Kenya. Those are the requirements. Under the Ugandan law, we have met the requirements
[and] it is now for the Law Council to process and issue me with a licence,” she said.

Last evening, the chairperson of the Law Council, Justice Irene Mulyagonja, said the Council has not yet sat to consider Ms Karua’s application.
“The whole Council has to sit [and] it has several people who are in public offices and are to be given notices to come and sit. Some are in Makerere University, in the Attorney General's Office, oth-
ers are Advocates in Private practice while others are judges like me. So, theCouncil has many people,”she said.

Ms Karua was by yesterday still hopeful the Council would issue her the licence, which is key in enabling her to join the 50-member legal team that will
represent four-time presidential candidate Besigye and his colleague Hajj Obeid Lutale.

The duo was abducted in Nairobi on November 16 and later arraigned before the General Court Martial in Kampala.

Justice Mulyagonja clarified that the Council does not issue the said temporary practicing licence, but the Registrar of the High Court does after recommendation from the Council,which she said is yet to sit and decide the application.

“The Council is in a legal retreat tomorrow (today) considering legal education....the meeting of the Council to consider such matters has not sat and it will be considered when the Council sits,” she said.

Dr Besigye, who appeared before the General Court Martial on November 20, reappeared before the same court today.

The Brig Gen Freeman Mugabe-chaired army court charged Dr Besigye and Hajj Lutale with four counts of crime, including possessing firearms, and were later remanded to Luzira prison until today.

The court is expected to pronounce itself on some of the preliminary objections raised by Mr Erias Lukwago, one of Dr Besigye's defence lawyers.

Some of the preliminary objections raised include the lack of jurisdiction of the military court to try the duo since the alleged offences were committed outside the country (in Kenya, Greece and Switzerland), and also whether a civilian can be charged before the military court.

Prosecution maintains that Dr Besigye, Hajj Lutale, and others still at large, between October 2023 and November 2024, while in foreign capitals Geneva in Switzerland, Athens in Greece, and Nairobi in Kenya, held
meetings aimed at soliciting logistical support and identifying military targets in Uganda with the intent to prejudice the security of the Defence Forces.

It's further alleged that the duo while at the Nairobi-based Riverside Apartments were found in unlawful possession of two pistols; one model 27KAL No.765 and the other HB 1014 1953, which are ordinarily the monopoly of the Defence Forces.

Members of the newly formed opposition People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) pressure group, where the suspects belong, in November announced enlisting Ms Karua on the legal team before they marched to Kenya’s High Commission in Kampala, which protest was blocked by the police.

Ms Karua yesterday said: “I haven't heard from the Uganda Law Council but tomorrow morning we will be communicating with them because they are aware the case is coming up tomorrow. I am very hopeful that I will get the licence, [because] Uganda is a democratic country operating under the Ugandan Constitution,” she said.

She added: “I don't see any difficulty [in accessing the licence because] this is not the first-time lawyers from Uganda and Kenya or the rest of the Jumuhiya (East African) community are cooperating. Our laws are similar and we have a history...we are Commonwealth countries with Commonwealth backgrounds and with all that, I see no difficulty.”

Ms Karua last week applied to the ULC for a temporary practicing certificate to join Lukwago and Company Advocates of Kampala as lead counsel in the case.

She, in the November 25 letter, informed the Council’s Secretary, Ms Margaret K Nabakooza, which her application is in line with Section 13 of the Advocates Act Chapter 267 of Uganda.

The said section greenlights the Council to grant a temporary licence to cross-border lawyers as long as they pay the licence fee and also operate in line with Ugandan laws.

Ms Karua, flanked by the Kampala Capital City's Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago yesterday said they are prepared to
present their issues before the Court today.

“We shall go to the court and raise the matters in the interest of justice and our client. My presence here is an indication of solidarity between us – people of Jumuhiya (East Africa) – and this case is raising a lot of interest, not only in Jumuhiya but across Africa because we have colleagues from as far as Nigeria who would like to come and support this case,” she said. 

She added: “For us, the citizens of East Africa, are concerned that the rule of law was not followed. Any State that wants to follow its citizens across the border has to do so legally; by following the extradition procedure. But for Uganda and Kenya to cooperate on an illegality is setting us backward,” she warned.

By the time of their suspected abductions, which the State maintains as an arrest, Dr Besigye and Hajj Lutale had gone to Nairobi to attend Ms Karua’s book launch which was slated for November 17.

Dr Besigye narrated to a team of PFF members who visited them in Luzira Prison on November 21, how Uganda
security operatives disguised as their Kenyan counterparts to abduct them from the meeting.

“When we went there in the morning to see him, Dr Besigye told us that they arrived in Nairobi on Saturday and checked into the Riverside Hotel without any incident. Dr Besigye added that he, together with Hajj Lutale, left their belongings, including Dr Besigye's passport, in the hotel room and went for a short meeting in another hotel before the planned dinner,” Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the PFF spokesperson, who doubles as the Kira municipality MP, told Daily Monitor after the visit.

Mr Ssemujju quoted Dr Besigye as saying: “These people drove us from Nairobi to Malaba [border post] on the same day but arrived at Malaba at 3am on Sunday. Along the way, they kept making stopovers. From Nairobi, the abductors kept speaking Swahili.

However, when we reached Malaba, one of them said "Kandi" then hajj Obeid asked them why all along they didn't speak any other language.”

Speaking to Kenya’s Citizen TV on November 27, Dr Besigye’s wife, Ms Winne Byanyima, said her husband was abducted after being tricked by a British national known to him, who deceived him that he had investors who were interested in supporting his political activities.

“He (Besigye) arrived on a Saturday and the launch was to be on Sunday. Then someone who is a British nation-
al, he knew had invited him herein Riverside here in Nairobi. This British national said he had a group of colleagues and some friends with businesses who invest in Africa who wanted to sup-
port political parties and could support their mass mobilisation work; their party activity, so he was exploring this and he was invited to a meeting in Riverside,” she said.

Ms Byanyima, who currently heads UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids, said the situation
became sour when Dr Besigye and Hajj Lutale entered the meeting room at Riverside Apartments.

She further noted that after the two men, with one known to Dr Besigye introduced themselves, there came a
quick knock on the door.

He went with his party colleague Hajj Obeid [Lutale] Kamulegeya, and when they arrived there, they entered the
room and were just being introduced to two people; the one he knew and another didn’t know, a knock on the door and it is announced that it is Kenya police that has arrived,” she said.

She added: “It turns out that it is eight men in plain clothes. He could not tell who was who and they [told them] they are under arrest and in the room was this man and his friend, two guns and with a box of money, he doesn’t know if it was money or not. He said wait a moment. I don’t know why these people came with guns, I don’t know why he has guns, he didn’t have time, he was taken photographs of and the man who opened the door, the British man, had disappeared and he was left with the man he didn’t know.

‘‘So, four of the men bundled him and his colleague into a car and drove them
to Uganda though out the night,’’ Ms By-anyima added.

Mr Lukwago, who has been leading the duo’s legal team, promised a cocktail of events in today’s session.

“We are handling all legal issues. On the issue of trying them in Military Court, we have raised preliminary objection and challenged the jurisdiction of the court and made it very clear that Dr Besigye is not supposed to be tried in General Court Martial and we cited the relevant laws, the grounds were laid and they promised to give a ruling (today), which we are waiting and that will give us the next course of action.”

The issue of not following the extradition procedure will also be handled.