Opposition leader, Dr Kizza Besigye and the former FDC President, Maj Gen (Rtd) Mugisha Muntu have accused government of planting evidence against Bobi Wine and Kassiano Wadri to frame them for concocted charges.
Besigye who was addressing the press at his office along Katonga Road in Kampla on Thursday said that the manner in which the so called evidence (guns) was discovered lacked transparency.
On Wednesday, the government said that Bobi Wine was in possession of a gun, which Police said was found inside a hotel room where the MP was resident. As such, the First Deputy Prime Minister, Gen Moses Ali told Parliament that Bobi Wine was to face trial in the army court.
“The whole idea that people had guns must be dismissed with contempt,” Besigye said.
“If there was a situation of people having guns, there should have been a more transparent way of exposing such a matter in a politically charged environment like we had in Arua,” he added.
He termed this as a plot by the regime to cover the tracks of violence it metted out on people in Arua.
“There is absolutely no way the regime can convince Ugandans that having killed people, it is not covering its tracks by trying to plant evidence against our people”.
Besigye said that the charges of treason are as trumped up as those he has previously been accused of. He said that this is one of the strategies that Museveni’s government deploys to handle its opponents.
The four time Presidential candidate demanded the immediate release of the detained MPs.
“We demand that all those persons being detained be freed unconditionally and immediately. No civilian person should be charged in a military court,” Besigye said.
He said that the court martial is supposed to deal with disciplining service men and that it lacks the independence to fairly try opponents of President Museveni.
“These courts take orders from Museveni. They have no protection of independence. Therefore, you can not try your opponents in your courts. Even if the charges are that they had guns, those charges can be tried in civil courts,” Besigye said.
On his part, Gen Muntu who is in Gulu told reporters on Thursday morning that the process the security agencies used in collecting the evidence lacks credibility.
“You attack people in a hotel, you break into the rooms at night, yet you have the capability to cordon off the hotel or the rooms, so that the next day if you needed to have credible evidence, you could call their lawyers with Police and conduct a search when there are witnesses,” said Muntu.
“But if you break into rooms, attack people, beat them up as alleged, how do you expect anybody to believe in the evidence you have collected?” he wondered.
Regarding the plans to have Bobi Wine tried before the military court martial, Mugisha Muntu says that this is an attempt by government to manipulate the laws at the disadvantage of the suspects.
“Ordinarily, the military court is supposed to deal with those who have uniform, there is also a provision for those who are found to have weapons to fight the state, like the insurgents”.
“The unfortunate thing is that the regime is under the panic and is trying to bring in people they want to incarcerate by planting evidence against them,” Muntu said.
He said that the MPs were in Arua for an electoral process which is far from the description of insurgence.