The two guns allegedly recovered from a Nairobi City apartment where Dr Kizza Besigye and his aide Obeid Lutale were arrested had been planted there as part of an ‘intelligence operation’, a star prosecution witness has told the High Court.
Andrew Wilson, alias Orlando, made the revelation yesterday during cross-examination by the defence in the ongoing treason trial against Dr Besigye, Lutale and UPDF officer Capt Denis Oola.
The witness, a former military officer, agreed with defence lawyer Kizito Faroq Kamulegeya that the guns and what was described as old fake currency were already inside the Riverside Apartments room before Lutale arrived.
‘You testified that the Riverside Apartment was pre-arranged for you,’ Mr Kamulegeya asked.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Mr Wilson replied.
Counsel Kamulegeya then asked the witness to confirm that the items were already in the room before the arrival of Lutale.
‘Yes,’ Mr Wilson answered.
The witness said the two pistols had been placed on a counter near the entrance of the room.
Mr Wilson, who has spent close to a month on the witness stand, said he became apprehensive after seeing the firearms and decided to unload them because he considered his safety more important.
‘I didn’t want loaded guns in my room. I unloaded them for safety purposes,’ he told the court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Baguma.
The defence, however, questioned why Mr Wilson, who claimed to have received military training in several countries, would touch firearms whose presence in the room he did not understand.
‘With the military training you acquired from America, Nigeria, South Africa, the Middle East…, was it wise for you to touch the gun with your fingers?’ Mr Kamulegeya asked.
Mr Wilson maintained that he was acting out of concern for his safety.
He also acknowledged that his fingerprints could have remained on the firearms and that he did not have a Kenyan firearms licence.
‘I considered safety first,’ he said.
Counsel then put it to the witness that the guns had been deliberately planted to implicate his client, Lutale.
‘It looks like it was to implicate A2 (Hajj Lutale),’ Mr Wilson responded.
The cross-examination further raised questions about how the alleged firearms recovery was handled after the arrests.
Mr Wilson told the court that after police arrested him, he was not interrogated and that the apartment was not cordoned off as a crime scene as it’s normally done in criminal matters.
He further said he and an associate identified only as Zac later returned to the apartment and spent the night there.
Counsel suggested that the sequence of events-including the alleged planting of the guns and fake currency, the escape after police stormed the premises, and the subsequent return to the apartment to enjoy their night-pointed to a stage-managed operation.
But Mr Wilson, in response, said, ‘It was an intelligence operation.’
Earlier in his evidence-in-chief, Mr Wilson told the court that he waited for Dr Besigye and Mr Lutale at Riverside Apartments on November 16, 2024, where he secretly recorded their conversation about allegedly overthrowing the Ugandan government by force of arms.
Further in the cross-examination yesterday, Wilson told the court that he had travelled to Kenya by road from Uganda, starting his journey in Entebbe where he had a meeting before being driven to the Kenyan border.
He didn’t tell the court which place in Entebbe he started his journey.
At the border, he said, he changed vehicles and was driven in a Kenyan car to Riverside Apartments in Nairobi.
Mr Wilson said he did not know the identities of the people who transported him and that he left Uganda on November 15, arriving in Nairobi the following day.
Dr Besigye and Lutale had travelled to Nairobi to attend the launch of a book by former Kenyan Justice Minister Martha Karua, where he was the chief guest.
He and Mr Lutale were subsequently arrested and returned to Uganda, where they were initially charged before the General Court Martial with unlawful possession of firearms and live ammunition.
The prosecution alleged that on November 16, 2024, the two were found at Riverside Apartments in possession of two pistols and eight rounds of pistol ammunition.
The firearms were described as weapons ordinarily reserved for the Defence Forces.
Under the charge of unlawful possession of firearms c/s 4 (1) and (2) of the Firearms Act, Cap 320, it was the prosecution’s case that Dr Besigye and Lutale, on November 16, 2024, while at Riverside Apartments in Nairobi, Kenya, were in unlawful possession of a Pistol model 27 KAL No. 765, and Pistol HB 1014 1953, which are ordinarily the monopoly of the Defence Forces.
Under the charge of being in possession of live ammunition, the prosecution contended that on the very day, at the same place at Riverside Apartments, they were found in unlawful possession of 8 rounds of pistol ammunition, which are ordinarily the monopoly of the Defence Forces.
The aforementioned charges were later dropped following the Supreme Court’s January 31, 2025 landmark judgment declaring the trial of civilians by military courts unconstitutional.
The judgment arose from former Nakawa MP Michael Kabaziguruka’s case and led to the transfer of pending cases involving civilians from the military court system to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Parliament later amended the UPDF Act to allow military trials of civilians in narrowly defined circumstances, particularly where a civilian is jointly charged with a serving soldier alleged to be the principal offender.
Treason charges
The State subsequently charged Dr Besigye, Mr Lutale and Capt Oola with treason, alleging that they participated in meetings in Uganda and abroad, including in Athens, Geneva and Nairobi, as part of a plan to overthrow the government.
The three deny the allegations.
Dr Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate, has been absent from the proceedings after collapsing in the dock over a month ago while protesting against legal representation he said he had not chosen.