Nubian Li and Bobi Wine. Photo: Facebook.
A confidante of Uganda’s Bobi Wine, a chief bodyguard, and 17 other supporters have been released on bail by a military court.
They had all been held for the past six months in Kitalya prison on trumped up charges of weapons possession by the military regime of Gen. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s dictator for the past 35 years.
Bobi Wine, a member of Parliament whose given name is Robert Kyagulanyi, is widely believed to have decisively defeated Museveni in the Jan. 14 presidential election. The U.S. which supports Uganda with about $1 billion in annual funding and weapons said the vote was “neither free nor fair.”
Those released today include Nubian Li, a key advisor to Bobi Wine and a musical collaborator, Dan Magic, also a musical collaborator, and Eddie Mutwe, chief bodyguard.
“Nubian Li, Eddie Mutwe, Dan Magic and the rest of the team members arrested in Kalangala last year have been released on bail,” said Joel Ssenyonyi, the National Unity Platform (NUP), spokesperson. “While this is a sigh of relief, we still have to press on and demand for the release of all political prisoners across the country.”
Bobi Wine’s campaign was disrupted; he was airlifted by helicopter together with bleeding journalists who had been assaulted by the military and dropped off at his home in Magere.
The associates were arrested December 30, 2020 during the campaigning. Bobi Wine, as a presidential candidate had been scheduled to campaign on the island of Kalangala, in the middle of the largest lake in East Africa. He was in the company of his security team led by Mutwe and several others when dictator Museveni’s men unleashed terror against the whole campaign.
Meanwhile the entire party of 33 people were arrested and taken to a magistrate court in Masaka where they were given bail. They were immediately re-arrested by the military and detained at Makindye Barracks. They were taken to the military court martial and hit with the fake weapons charges.
Since then, the arrested team had been making frequent appearances before the general court martial seeking bail. They were denied based on claims by Museveni that they would incite violence and disrupt the swearing in after the dictator stole the election.
The Bobi Wine aides and associates are required to make regular court appearances.
The author, a survivor of torture by the Museveni regime, can be reached via [email protected]
