Kizza Besigye, a key opposition figure detained in Uganda is resorting to hunger strike in protest over his continued detention without trial, APA can report from Kampala on Tuesday.
Besigye who has been detained since November over charges of being in possession of pistols and attempts to buy weapons in neighbouring Kenya claimed through an aide that he was being held unlawfully.
The 68-year-old denies the accusations against him which were formally made at a military court in Uganda following his extradition from Kenya where he was first held.
A hearing of his case was supposed to have been made in January but was postponed indefinitely.
Besigye stood for election but lost to President Yoweri Museveni four times and did not contest the last polls in 2021.
He began his career on the side of Mr Museveni as his personal physician during the latter’s armed struggle against the government of Milton Obote in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Besigye has a long history of collision with the authorities among them treason charges in 2005.
He was arrested and detained for among other things leading an unlawful rally ahead of the 2006 elections which he lost to Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. The case was subsequently ruled in his favour.
His last brush with the law was in 2022 when he was held charged with unlawful assembly, a case which was supposed to be heard on February 11th 2025.
WN/as/APA