Ugandan opposition leader Besigye is unconscious in hospital after collapsing in court, wife says

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been hospitalized and is unconscious after he collapsed during a courtroom session of his treason trial, according to his wife and others who are urging authorities to set him free after repeated bail denials.

Besigye fell in the dock on Wednesday while protesting his trial without lawyers of his own choosing, after authorities detained his main attorney, Erias Lukwago, and charged him with alleged failure to report acts of treason.

Besigye's wife, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, said in a post on X that Besigye is unconscious in an intensive care unit at a public hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. "Before he collapsed, he cried out that he was being injured," she said.

Ingrid Turinawe, a close confidant of Besigye, told The Associated Press that she and others were not allowed to see Besigye at the Mulago Hospital.

“He is in the ICU, and he is not responding to anything,” she said, adding that Besigye's personal physician was able to see him several hours after he collapsed.

A spokesperson for the Ugandan prison system didn't respond to a request for comment.

The case against Besigye is controversial as Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and his son, military chief Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, have already weighed in against him.

Kainerugaba, alleging that Besigye plotted to kill his father, has previously described the opposition figure as “a dead man walking.” And Museveni himself has said Besigye must answer for “the very serious offenses he is alleged to have been planning."

In recent days, prosecutors have moved to present evidence they say will prove Besigye and others plotted to overthrow the government. Besigye's political party says the charges against him are fake and politically motivated.

Besigye, once Uganda’s most prominent opposition figure, last contested the presidency in 2016, later saying that elections were a waste of time in a country with an authoritarian leader who depends more on the armed forces.

Besigye went missing in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in November 2024 but was later presented before a military tribunal in Kampala to face charges related to threatening national security. The criminal case was transferred to a civilian court and the charge amended to treason, which carries the death penalty.

Besigye once was a trusted ally of Museveni in the guerrilla war that propelled him to power in 1986, and even served as Museveni’s personal doctor and military assistant.

He later became a fierce critic of the president, condemning what he saw as a descent into authoritarianism that betrayed the democratic promise of Museveni’s early years. Term and age limits on the presidency have since been scrapped.

Museveni, who won reelection in controversial polls in January, is serving a seventh consecutive term in office. Bobi Wine, Museveni’s main opponent in that election, has since gone into exile out of fear for his safety.