A Ugandan opposition lawmaker was abducted in Kenya, his wife alleges.

A famous Ugandan opposition leader was abducted at a book launch in Kenya over the weekend, taken to Uganda, and is being imprisoned at a military jail in Kampala, his wife reported on Wednesday.

Veteran Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye appears in the dock at the courthouse where he was accused of inciting violence during a demonstration over growing consumer prices in Kampala, Uganda, on May 25, 2022. REUTERS/Abubaker Lubowa/File Photo

Kizza Besigye has competed against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in four elections and lost each time, but he has disputed the results, citing fraud and voter intimidation. He has been arrested hundreds of times previously.

“I request the government of Uganda to release my husband, Dr. Kizza Besigye, from where he is being held immediately,” said his wife, Winnie Byanyima.

A representative for the Ugandan military could not be immediately contacted for a comment.

“As police, we don’t have him, so we can’t make any comment,” Ugandan police spokeswoman Kituuma Rusoke told Reuters.

A representative for Kenya’s national police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In July, Kenyan officials apprehended 36 members of Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), one of Uganda’s biggest opposition parties, and deported them to Uganda, where they were charged with terrorism-related charges.

Besigye, who was Museveni’s surgeon during the guerrilla war but subsequently became a vocal opponent, was abducted on Saturday at the launch of a book by senior Kenyan opposition leader Martha Karua, Byanyima said on the social networking site X.

“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” said Byanyima, who is the executive head of UNAIDS, the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS. “We, his family, and his attorneys want to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being imprisoned in a military jail?”

Museveni’s regime has been accused of numerous human rights violations against opposition leaders and sympathizers, including unlawful detentions, torture, and extrajudicial murders.

Officials refute the charges and say individuals arrested are jailed properly and processed adequately by the judicial system.