Abducted Uganda MP shows signs of torture: law society

A Ugandan member of parliament critical of President Yoweri Museveni was abducted over the weekend and apparently tortured before his release, a member of the law society said on Monday.

Uganda has seen increased pressure on opposition figures ahead of presidential elections in January, when Museveni will seek to extend his nearly 40 years in power.

On Sunday, the Uganda Law Society raised the alarm over the "enforced disappearance" of Barnabas Tinkasiimire, a lawyer and MP, after his family told them he had been picked up by "heavily armed, drone-operating security operatives" at a petrol station in the capital Kampala.

Speaking to AFP on Monday, Tinkasiimire's wife said he had since been found in a suburb of the city.

"They dumped him in Namungoona in the early morning hours," she said, adding that he went missing on Friday.

"He is alive but very weak. We have taken him for medical attention," she said.

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Tinkasiimire's wife later told the law society that he had "torture marks on his body", according to its vice-president, Anthony Asiimwe.

"We are concerned that a legislator and an advocate can be tortured," Asiimwe told AFP.

"It is disturbing and we demand that the government get to the root of what happened to him," he added.

Outspoken critic

Though Tinkasiimire is a member of Museveni's ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, he has been an outspoken critic of some aspects of the president's rule.

In a post on X, opposition leader Bobi Wine said Tinkasiimire "has been very critical of Museveni's effort to impose his brutal son on our country, which his family believes is the reason he is being persecuted and held incommunicado".

Museveni's son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is the head of the Ugandan army and widely seen as the likely successor to his father.

Kainerugaba last month boasted on social media that he had kidnapped one of Wine's aides and was torturing him in his basement.

The United Nations and several rights organisations have expressed concern about repression against opposition groups ahead of the election.

"Enforced disappearances are currently a serious problem in many parts of Uganda," the law society said.