KAMPALA. The High Court in Kampala has dismissed an application by jailed opposition politician Dr Kizza Besigye and his co-accused Obeid Lutale against Chief of Defence Forces Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba and the Attorney General over the deportation of Kenyan senior attorney Martha Karua and the arrest of former Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago.
Acting High Court Judge Simon Peter M. Kinobe ruled on Tuesday that Besigye and Lutale had failed to prove that Muhoozi and the government deliberately interfered with their constitutional right to legal representation or made their ongoing criminal proceedings unfair.
The judge also found that social media statements attributed to Muhoozi — including one in which he claimed personal responsibility for Karua’s deportation — were not sufficient evidence to establish that he directed immigration officials to deny the Kenyan lawyer entry into Uganda.
“Beyond exhibiting the publications, the Applicants have not established a sufficient evidential nexus between those statements and the immigration decision affecting Hon. Martha Karua, SC,” Kinobe ruled.
The court said no cogent evidence had been presented showing that Muhoozi exercised legal authority over the immigration officers responsible for the decision or that they acted on his instructions.
Muhoozi’s posts cited
Besigye and Lutale had sued Muhoozi personally alongside the Attorney General, accusing him of involvement in what they described as a sustained campaign to dismantle their defence team.
Their lawyers relied partly on posts attributed to Muhoozi’s verified X account following Karua’s denial of entry at Entebbe International Airport on June 22.
“Do not blame my great father for this decision. I deported her myself. She’s no longer allowed in our country,” Muhoozi was quoted as posting on June 23.
The application also cited posts in which Muhoozi said Besigye “will not escape his just sentence” and, in another, stated: “But we will hang him very soon.”
Besigye’s lawyers argued that the statements prejudged his criminal case and showed that Muhoozi was behind actions affecting his legal team.
Kinobe, however, ruled that the applicants had not established the necessary connection between the statements and the administrative action taken by immigration officials.
Karua deportation
Karua, a former Kenyan justice minister and presidential candidate, has served as lead counsel for Besigye and Lutale since November 2024.
She travelled to Uganda on June 22 ahead of proceedings involving the two men but was denied entry at Entebbe International Airport.
According to her affidavit, Karua arrived aboard a Kenya Airways flight at about 8:50 a.m. alongside two other people, including the president of the Law Society of Kenya.
She said her passport was initially stamped before immigration officials separated her from the delegation and informed her that she would not be allowed into Uganda because of unspecified “security concerns.”
Karua said her two mobile phones were forcibly taken from her and later returned. She declined to receive them back because she feared confidential communications relating to Besigye’s defence could have been accessed or tampered with.
Immigration authorities subsequently served her with a notice classifying her as a prohibited immigrant, with “persona non grata” listed as the reason, and returned her to Nairobi the same day.
Besigye and Lutale wanted the High Court to overturn that decision and permanently stop the government from blocking, detaining or deporting Karua whenever she travelled to Uganda to represent them.
But Kinobe declined to rule on whether immigration authorities acted legally.
He said the legality of the decision should be challenged through a separate judicial review application rather than through the human rights enforcement proceedings brought by Besigye and Lutale.
“The appropriate procedure for directly challenging the immigration decision is Judicial Review,” Kinobe said.
The ruling therefore does not pronounce Karua’s exclusion from Uganda lawful. Rather, the judge held that the procedure used in the application was not the appropriate one for determining its legality.
More than 50 lawyers
On Besigye and Lutale’s claim that they had been deprived of lawyers of their choice, the court found that the pair remained represented by a large legal team.
Kinobe said the record showed they had engaged about 13 law firms comprising more than 50 advocates.
“The Applicants were not deprived of their constitutional right under Article 28(3)(d) of the Constitution,” the judge ruled.
He said their criminal proceedings had not been rendered unfair by the absence of Karua and Lukwago.
The judge noted that the trial court had repeatedly adjourned proceedings to give Besigye and Lutale time to reorganise their defence team and had offered them an opportunity to choose lawyers from a list of state brief advocates.
Kinobe said the Constitution protects an accused person’s right to a lawyer of their choice, but that right has to be exercised in a manner that also allows court proceedings to move forward.
“The exercise of that right must be undertaken by appointing lawyers who are reasonably available to attend court for the purpose, so as to ensure the expeditious conduct of proceedings in line with the law,” he ruled.
Karua could participate virtually
The court also pointed to Uganda’s rules allowing lawyers and other parties to participate in proceedings through video conferencing.
Kinobe said Karua’s physical absence from Uganda did not necessarily mean she was unable to participate in Besigye’s defence.
The applicants could have asked the trial court to allow her to participate remotely, he said.
The judge said there was no evidence showing that Karua had been prevented from advising Besigye and Lutale, preparing pleadings, developing legal strategy or consulting the other lawyers representing them.
Lukwago arrest
Besigye and Lutale had also challenged the arrest of Lukwago, a member of their defence team who was subsequently accused of misprision of treason.
They alleged that his arrest and prosecution were intended to remove him from the defence team and intimidate other lawyers representing them.
The government rejected that argument, saying Lukwago was in lawful custody and that the Director of Public Prosecutions had not interfered with Besigye’s choice of lawyers.
Kinobe ruled that being a lawyer representing an accused person does not shield someone from criminal investigation or prosecution.
“The mere fact that a person serves as counsel in ongoing litigation does not give him immunity from the ordinary operation of the criminal law system,” the judge said.
The court ultimately found that Besigye and Lutale had not proved, on a balance of probabilities, that Muhoozi and the government had deliberately or substantially interfered with their right to legal representation.
Kinobe dismissed the application but ordered each side to bear its own costs because the case raised fundamental constitutional questions.
The ruling was dated August 11 and delivered electronically through the Judiciary’s Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS).
Besigye and Lutale remain on trial in Criminal Session Case No. 335 of 2025.