Ruckus erupted outside Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court on Wednesday when plain-clothed operatives whisked away two people, among them a local councilor, shortly after proceedings in the treason and misprision of treason case against Dr. Kizza Besigye and others were adjourned.
The drama unfolded moments after Besigye’s lawyers, led by Senior Counsel Martha Karua and Erias Lukwago, addressed the media. Grade One Magistrate Jonathan Tiyo had stepped in for Chief Magistrate Esther Nyadoi, who was absent, and adjourned the trial to May 29, 2025.
As hundreds exited the courtroom, men in civilian clothes bundled the two suspects into a waiting white van (“the drone”) parked opposite the court. Witnesses say the vehicle then sped off toward the nearby Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). Bystanders shouted for their release, and one enraged supporter punched an officer before uniformed Joint Anti-Terrorism (JAT) personnel arrived in a double-cab and escorted the van away.
Counter-terrorism officers on duty at Nakawa attempted a pursuit but were unable to keep pace. Harold Kaija, Secretary-General of the Patriotic Front for Freedom (a splinter faction of the FDC), identified one of those taken as Katongole, a councillor from Kira Division. According to sources, Katongole was involved in an earlier scuffle when court spectators drove out a man suspected of photographing the audience covertly—a man the mob labelled a “state spy.”
Other accounts claim Katongole and a companion had been leading anti-government chants outside the court, singing that President Yoweri Museveni and his son, the Chief of Defence Forces, would one day fall and that Besigye’s faction would prevail. Speaking to our reporter, lawyer Eron Kiiza, who says he too was seized but later released, condemned the arrests as unlawful.
“Courts are supposed to be sanctuaries of liberty, not dangerous scenes of arrests by security operatives,” Kiiza said. “These courthouse arrests intimidate people and discourage them from accessing the very safe havens the Constitution envisions.”
In recent years, “drone” vans have become notorious for swift, unannounced detentions of government opponents, prompting public outcry and court orders to curb the practice—orders critics say have gone unheeded.
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