Besigye’s wife towed in car to police station

Ms Winnie Byanyima, the wife to Ugandan opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye was at 6:30 this morning besieged in her car right outside their family gate and towed by a police truck to Kasangati police station, about 20 kilometres from the country’s capital, Kampala.

The police believed the opposition leader was in the car. Ms Byanyima however was with Dr Besigye’s driver, and two aides heading to Entebbe International Airport, to catch a 9:00am British Airways flight to New York, where she works  as director for gender in the Bureau for Development Policy at the UNDP.

Ms Byanyima says she is outraged by the incident and will instruct her lawyers to take on the Police Chief Maj Gen Kale Kayihura and also demand an apology. She said their family home is now under siege by the police and other security operatives.

“I am absolutely furious at this incident, and it seems my husband is now a hostage…they (police) have besieged my home,” Ms Byanyima said in an interview with Daily Monitor, moments after getting released. She narrates that when she got out of the family gate at 6:30, five police trucks had been positioned at the gate. Several policemen in anti-riot gear jumped down and surrounded the car, while others took position about 50 metres away.

“I then opened my car window to find out what was happening, but it was very frightening, so I closed my window, but they (police) kept walking around the car. This was a full operation, they brought a police truck which towed us to Kasangati police station,” the senior UN official said. While at the police station, she says one police officer knocked the door and she opened.

“There was heavy deployment of the military police, red tops and officers in regular uniform. I also saw water canon trucks, but when they realized Dr Besigye was not in the car, the policemen jumped into their trucks and drove back to our family home,” Ms Byanyima says of the incident.

Two police women were left behind to watch over her. “I asked the police women why they were doing this to me, and whether they want me to make a statement or just go back home. But they did not answer me,” she narrates. After 45 minutes, Kasangati police commander ordered for her release.

“I now cannot make it for the 9am flight and what do they expect me to tell my boss, they held the wrong person, because I know they targeted my husband, it is very disturbing,” she added, “I don’t fear for myself, but I fear for my husband.