Police search Opposition party offices in Uganda
What you need to know:
- They searched the party printer, which the government said was used to make subversive materials that were seized by security agencies.
- Kabaziguruka said friends were allowed to visit him but he could not get out of his compound.
Police on Saturday cordoned off and searched the Forum for Democratic Change party headquarters in Najjanankumbi district.
They searched the party printer, which the government said was used to make subversive materials that were seized by security agencies.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said officers would scan the printer and search the party office premises to see if there was another printer.
“There were materials printed during the defiance campaign. We want to scan the printer and see if it is the one that was used to make those materials,” he said.
FDC spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemuju Nganda said party officials received a letter from the inspector-general of police informing them about the impending search.
“Kayihura wrote to us this week that officers wanted to examine our printer. But they were the ones running the office when they raided us and carried the posters,” Mr Ssemuju said.
The search follows the arrest of about 30 soldiers this week, among them two officers in-charge of the armoury, on accusations of having links with a rebel group.
Nakawa MP Michael Kabaziguruka of FDC, an Opposition politician from northern Uganda and seven civilians have also been separately been detained.
Kabaziguruka was taken from his house by security agents on Wednesday to the special investigations unit at Kireka.
He was released on police bond on Thursday evening. However, he said he was still under surveillance as police maintained presence at his home.
“My house is surrounded. There are more than 10 policemen in my compound with a patrol vehicle outside,” he told the Monitor.
The leader of the opposition in Parliament Winifred Kiiza was among his sureties at the police station.
Kabaziguruka said friends were allowed to visit him but he could not get out of his compound.
On Tuesday, police arrested seven people, among them an FDC village chairman in Aliba Sub-County for “recruiting rebels who abducted 23 people in Yumbe and Moyo districts three weeks ago”.
Army spokesman Paddy Ankunda on Thursday confirmed the arrest of the soldiers but declined to give their identities or details about their offences.
The Opposition shadow defence minister Hassan Kaps Fungaroo warned that such “arbitrary” arrests could cause hostility against President Yoweri Museveni’s 30-year-old regime across the country.
Opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was runner-up in the controversial presidential election held in February, is at Luzira Maximum Security Prison, Kampala, waiting to be charged with treason.
