DEAD OR ALIVE: Security Agencies Ordered to Produce Muwanga Kivumbi Within Seven Days

KAMPALA — For nearly two weeks, no one has publicly accounted for the whereabouts of Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi.

His family says they have searched in vain. His lawyers have petitioned the courts. Uganda Police says it is not holding him. The government says investigations are still underway. And now, in an extraordinary turn, the High Court has ordered the country’s own security agencies to find the missing opposition leader and explain what happened to him.

The order, issued Wednesday by Justice Collins Acellam, places Uganda’s security establishment under a seven-day deadline to determine where the National Unity Platform (NUP) deputy president for Buganda is before the court decides whether to invoke one of the law’s oldest safeguards against unlawful detention — the writ of habeas corpus.

The ruling stops short of compelling security agencies to physically produce Kivumbi immediately. Instead, it acknowledges a legal paradox confronting the court: a person cannot be ordered to produce a detainee when the identity of the alleged detaining authority remains unknown.

“From the evidence presently before this Court, the Applicant’s whereabouts remain unknown. The material filed so far also indicates that the Applicant is not currently in the custody of the Uganda Police Force,” Justice Acellam wrote.

The judge reminded the parties that the purpose of habeas corpus is not merely procedural but constitutional.

“The purpose of a writ of habeas corpus is to compel the person or authority having custody of an applicant to produce that person before Court. This enables the Court to examine the legality of the detention and to make appropriate orders,” he ruled.

The decision comes amid mounting pressure over Kivumbi’s disappearance, which his political party has described as an enforced abduction.

According to documents filed before the High Court, Kivumbi vanished on July 10 shortly after walking out of court on bail. His lawyers say armed men believed to be military operatives intercepted him at a police checkpoint in Mpigi District, bundled him into a waiting vehicle without identifying themselves or producing an arrest warrant, and drove away.

Since then, the application states, neither his family nor his lawyers have been allowed to see him. He has not been presented before any court, nor has any government agency publicly admitted holding him.

When the habeas corpus application first came before court on July 17, government lawyers did not dispute that Kivumbi was missing. Instead, they requested more time to investigate.

By the time the matter returned on July 21, the government’s position remained largely unchanged.

The only affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents was sworn by Assistant Commissioner of Police Godwin Tumugumye, who informed the court that Kivumbi was not being detained by the Uganda Police Force.

According to the ruling, “He stated that the Applicant was not in the custody of the Uganda Police Force and was not being held in any police facility.”

Government lawyers further submitted that “inquiries were ongoing to establish the Applicant’s whereabouts, to assist the Court in making an informed decision.”

Justice Acellam concluded that ordering a writ of habeas corpus without first identifying the detaining authority would be ineffective.

“In my view, an order of habeas corpus would be ineffective at this stage if it cannot be directed to the person or authority required to produce the Applicant. Since the Applicant’s whereabouts remain unknown, and since the Respondents have indicated their willingness to continue inquiries to establish where he is, it is prudent to allow them a limited opportunity to do so. That course better serves the objective of the writ than issuing an order that may not achieve its intended legal purpose,” the judge wrote.

He nevertheless made clear that the security agencies could not leave the matter unresolved indefinitely.

In his formal orders, Justice Acellam directed that “The Respondents are ordered to conclude investigations into the whereabouts of the Applicant.”

He further ordered that “The Respondents shall file an affidavit on behalf of the Uganda Police Force, setting out the outcome of those investigations, within seven (7) days from the date hereof.”

The matter will return to court on July 29, 2026, at 9:00 a.m., when the respondents are expected to explain what their investigations have uncovered and whether Kivumbi has been found.

The disappearance has become one of the most closely watched political cases in Uganda since the country’s 2026 General Election.

The High Court’s ruling leaves Uganda confronting an unsettling reality: the country’s most senior police officials have told a judge they are not holding one of the nation’s most prominent opposition leaders, yet they have now been ordered by that same court to find him.

Within seven days, the government will have to answer one of the most basic questions in any constitutional democracy: Where is Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi?

National Unity Platform president Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, has repeatedly accused state security agencies of carrying out an enforced disappearance, alleging that Kivumbi was rearrested shortly after being granted bail.

The party has also claimed that he was tortured at Kasenyi Special Forces Command Military Barracks, allegations that security agencies have neither confirmed nor publicly addressed. (See Details Here).