Wife sues SFC commander, IGP Ochola over Kakwenza’s detention

The wife to novelist, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija has dragged the Special Forces Commander, the Inspector General of Police and government to court over the continued detention of her husband.

Arrested on December 28 from his home in Kisaasi, a Kampala suburb, Kakwenza has been in an unknown security detention centre for more than a week.

The Chief Magistrates Court in Makindye earlier this week issued an order directing his release but the same has not yet come to pass.

However, Eva Basima, the wife to Kakwenza has filed a habeas corpus application in which she wants the state to produce him dead or alive.

According to her affidavit, the wife says Kakwenza was arrested from his home in Kisaasi by officers armed with guns and took him to an unknown destination.

“The applicant (Kakwenza) remined inaccessible to me until plan-clothed men and SFC soldiers armed with guns and escorted by a police van drove him to our upcountry home in Iganga and conducted a search from 8:30am to 12:00pm. The applicant further showed me wounds under his feet and told me he had others on his buttocks. He told me he was starved and asked me for what to eat. When I gave him a glass of milk, he retched it,” Basima says.

"The applicant revealed to me that he is being detained at Special Forces Command in Entebbe. The applicant remains under incommunicado and illegal detention.”

According to the application, Kakwenza’s continued detention is illegal and wants court to issue an order directing that he is produced dead or alive by the commander of the Special Forces Command, Director of the Criminal Investigations Division, Inspector General of Police and Attorney General of Uganda.

“No charges have been brought against the applicant by any competent court of law and no explanation has been afforded to his lawyers, family and friends for his continued illegal detention.”

The Criminal Investigations Division spokesperson, Charles Twiine on Monday told journalists that Kakwenza is accused of offensive communication in relation to his "abusive" and belittling social media posts against President Museveni and UPDF Land Forces Commander, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.