Bobi Wine reveals why security is still holding novelist Kakwenza despite court ordering his release

The National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Kyagulanyi famously known as Bobi Wine has revealed why Novelist/writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is still being held by the security agents despite court ordering for his immediate release.

Kakwenza was arrested last month from his home in Kisaasi, a Kampala city suburb by armed men. Police allege that he made offensive communication, under the Computer Misuse Act, against President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who doubles as the Commander of Land Forces, between December 23, 2021, and December 26, 2021.

Following complaints by his lawyer Eron Kiiza on Monday last week where he informed court that his client had been tortured while in week-long detention to an extent that he is urinating blood, the next day, Grade One Magistrate Irene Nambatya issued a court order saying that Kakwenza should be unconditionally released from police custody and every police officer should comply with the order.

However, her court order was majestically ignored by security because up to now the writer is still in incarceration, a matter that has raised a lot of suspicion on Kakwenzi’s life.

Using one of his social media channels (Facebook) the former Kyadondo East lawmaker on Sunday revealed that Kakwenzi might be passing through the same dilemma he experienced when he was arrested in Arua three years ago.

Recalling what happened to him in 2018 while campaigning for Kassiano Ezati Wadri in a by-election of Arua Municipality parliamentary seat, Bobi Wine said when he was arrested by the security he was beaten beyond recognition and when the public demanded his release the state began to panic because he was in a very bad shape to appear in public.

“I have been thinking about what Kakwenza must be going through and why the regime is either scared or simply unwilling to have anybody access him, later on, release him as ordered by the court. When they found me in my hotel room in Arua, the thugs beat me to near death. But what was interesting was the deliberate effort to ensure that by the time I reappeared in the public, I would be in better shape. From that time, after I was “properly beaten” as Museveni boasted, the regime made every effort to keep me away from the public until the 23rd of August, almost 10 days after my gruesome torture,”the former presidential candidate said.

He added that during that period, they first kept him away from everybody including his lawyers and family because the wounds were still fresh. However, after so much pressure from people thinking he was dead, they only allowed Busiro East lawmaker Hon. Medard Ssegona and Asuman Basalirwa legislator Bugiri Municipality to see him in Gulu, so as to prove that he was still alive.

“I can’t recall how many injections I was forcefully subjected to in those days, but I was told they were injecting me with steroids to reduce the inflammation and swelling on my body. Every day, so many military doctors would come in to check on my progress and of course, recommend other injections. In the night, I would be sneaked out of the hospital to Kampala Imaging Center under heavy security.”

Bobi Wine added: “I highly suspect they are doing the same thing to Kakwenza if he is still alive. After subjecting him to grave torture, they must be trying to treat him so that by the time they bring him to the public, he is presentable enough.”