KAMPALA — He arrived not as an ordinary witness, but as a man playing a carefully constructed role.
Andrew Wilson Orlando told Uganda’s High Court that he presented himself to Dr Kizza Besigye and his associates as a wealthy foreign financier with access to millions of dollars, military equipment and international connections.
The money was fictitious.
So was the company.
And the financiers he claimed were standing behind him did not exist.
What was real, according to Wilson, was the surveillance operation he was running while secretly cooperating with Ugandan security agencies.
His testimony has now placed before the court one of the most explosive accounts yet of the prosecution’s case against Besigye, Obeid Lutale and Capt Denis Oola — a story involving alleged weapons purchases, paramilitary training, drones, foreign meetings, military contacts and an alleged plan to assassinate President Yoweri Museveni.
But Wilson’s testimony also presents the defence with an obvious question: was he uncovering an existing conspiracy, or did his elaborate undercover operation help create the circumstances from which the prosecution’s allegations emerged?
The court has yet to determine the truth of those competing narratives.
The man behind the fictitious fortune
Wilson, described in court as a British-American private security investigator, said his entry into Besigye’s circle depended on credibility.
He needed to appear capable of delivering what the alleged conspirators wanted.
So he invented an international business operation, imaginary associates and access to a fortune worth millions of dollars.
According to his testimony, the supposed backers were prepared to make $5 million available, with the money to be placed in a Dubai bank account to which Besigye would have access.
The offer was accompanied by promises of weapons, technical assistance and military training.
It appears that Wilson used “a fictitious company, imaginary associates and a promise of $5 million” to gain Besigye’s confidence.
The strategy, Wilson said, worked.
The conversations moved from money to logistics and eventually to allegations of military action.
He said the proposed support included hand grenades, drones and surface-to-air missiles, alongside training for recruits.
The prosecution’s case is that those conversations were evidence of a genuine plan to overthrow the Ugandan government by force.
Besigye and his co-accused deny the allegations.
The power bank that became a surveillance device
The most unusual instrument in Wilson’s operation was something that would ordinarily attract little attention: a mobile power bank.
Inside it, he said, was a concealed camera.
Wilson testified that he secretly recorded meetings with Besigye and Joel Wakayima, a Ugandan based in Switzerland.
One of the meetings took place in Geneva.
According to Wilson, Besigye suggested that they move the discussion to his apartment. Wilson declined because he had already prepared his own residence for covert surveillance.
Moving elsewhere, he told court, “would have compromised” his ability to record the meeting.
The alleged recordings are now potentially among the most important pieces of evidence in the prosecution’s case.
Wilson said he later transferred recorded material onto a hard drive and handed it to investigators.
That creates another battleground for the trial: not simply what Wilson says happened, but whether the recordings can independently corroborate his account and establish precisely what was said.
‘Pineapples’ and the road to Kisumu
One of Wilson’s most detailed accounts concerns an alleged training operation in Kisumu, Kenya.
He said he offered to organise paramilitary training for between 40 and 60 people.
The recruits, according to his testimony, were to receive military equipment.
Among the promised supplies were hand grenades.
Wilson gave the grenades a code name.
“We were to deliver hand grenades, code-named ‘pineapples’, at the training point in Kisumu,” he testified.
The witness said he ultimately did not deliver the promised weapons.
Instead, he continued communicating with the group while working with Ugandan security agencies.
The prosecution’s amended indictment separately alleges that Besigye solicited and received $5,000 between June 14 and July 24, 2024, allegedly to facilitate the movement of 36 people from Uganda to Kisumu for training.
Wilson claims that he handed over the $5,000 during a Geneva meeting and secretly recorded the encounter.
The alleged operation eventually unravelled after Kenyan security forces intervened.
Wilson said he later travelled to Kisumu, where several people were arrested, including Ugandans who were subsequently returned to Uganda and charged with terrorism-related offences.
Those arrests, and their connection to the alleged conspiracy described in the treason case, remain matters for the court to determine.
When the weapons did not arrive
The promised weapons became a recurring problem.
Wilson said that after deciding to cooperate with Ugandan security agencies, he began giving Besigye and Wakayima excuses for failing to deliver the equipment.
But the conversations continued.
According to his testimony, the group began exploring alternative routes for bringing in weapons.
Wilson said an airstrip in Mahagi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was discussed as a possible delivery point.
He testified that Besigye provided coordinates, elevation and runway information for the facility and claimed to have used the same location previously.
The prosecution says such details demonstrate that the alleged conspiracy went beyond political rhetoric and involved practical preparations.
The defence will ultimately have the opportunity to test those claims against the recordings, documents and other evidence.
Then came the allegation about Museveni
The most explosive portion of Wilson’s testimony concerns President Museveni.
Wilson told court that he questioned whether Besigye’s group had enough support to capture and hold Kampala if an operation succeeded.
According to the witness, Besigye said he could rely on senior military contacts.
Wilson then testified that the conversation turned to the possibility of assassinating Museveni.
“I suggested that if the group was serious about overthrowing the Government, they should consider assassinating President Museveni,” Wilson told court.
The allegation became even more striking when Wilson described the supposed debate over who would be blamed.
He said Wakayima wanted the group to claim responsibility, while Besigye allegedly feared the political consequences.
“Wakayima wanted to take credit for the attack, but he and Besigye disagreed. They wanted the attack to be attributed to ADF,” Wilson testified.
Wilson also alleged that Besigye claimed to have contacts who could provide information about Museveni’s movements and vulnerable points.
He further claimed that Besigye spoke of military officers who could help the group seize and hold territory.
The allegations have not been established by the court.
A drone, an airport and a plan for chaos
Wilson’s testimony describes a broader alleged strategy in which disruption would precede an attempted seizure of power.
One of the alleged targets was Entebbe International Airport.
He told court that discussions included using a drone to interfere with a commercial aircraft and then using the resulting chaos to generate publicity and blame the government.
Wilson alleged the group considered flying an unmanned drone into a commercial aircraft’s engine at Entebbe.
His testimony also touched on Nakasongola, where he said drones could be used against helicopters and military aircraft.
He alleged that Besigye requested surface-to-air missiles and claimed to have contacts within the Air Force.
Wilson testified that he gave Besigye $5,000 during a July 2024 Geneva meeting and that their conversation included surface-to-air missiles and possible drone attacks on Nakasongola airport.
The prosecution’s theory is that such attacks would help generate instability, create civil unrest and ultimately facilitate a military takeover.
The Café Javas allegation
Another allegation brought before court was far more local.
Wilson testified that Wakayima proposed detonating a hand grenade at Café Javas on Acacia Avenue in Kampala because government officials were believed to frequent the premises.
According to Wilson, the meeting in Athens later involved discussions about targeting influential people and strategic locations, including Café Javas.
Again, the allegation remains unproven.
What matters for the prosecution is the cumulative picture it is attempting to establish: recruitment, weapons, training, intelligence, attacks on strategic locations and eventually a change of government.
Geneva, Athens and the international trail
The alleged conspiracy described by Wilson did not remain within Uganda.
His testimony has taken the court through Switzerland, Kenya, Greece and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Geneva became a recurring meeting point.
Wilson said he met Besigye and Wakayima there in November 2023 and later returned for further meetings in 2024.
He also testified about an Athens meeting on September 29, 2024, after Besigye returned from the United States.
Wilson told court the Athens discussions concerned how the alleged group would seize power and included attacks on influential people and key installations.
The State alleges that the meetings formed part of a wider conspiracy involving Besigye, Lutale, Oola and others still at large.
Prosecutors say the alleged activities took place between 2023 and November 2024 across Uganda, Kenya, Switzerland and Greece.
And then there was Bobi Wine
Wilson also introduced another major Ugandan political figure into the story.
He said he repeatedly suggested bringing National Unity Platform leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, into the discussions.
According to Wilson, Besigye rejected the idea.
The allegation does not, on its own, accuse Kyagulanyi of participating in the alleged conspiracy.
It does, however, demonstrate how widely Wilson says he attempted to penetrate Besigye’s political network.
A witness who was never really just a witness
This is where the case becomes unusually complicated.
Wilson was not an accidental observer.
By his own testimony, he actively constructed the environment in which the conversations occurred.
He invented a company.
He invented financiers.
He offered money that did not exist.
He promised weapons he says he never intended to supply.
He proposed military assistance.
He secretly recorded meetings.
And he did all this while reporting information to Ugandan security agencies.
That makes his testimony potentially powerful because he claims to have obtained direct evidence.
But it also gives the defence a ready-made line of attack.
If Wilson deliberately created opportunities for Besigye and others to discuss military activity, the defence can question whether he merely discovered a conspiracy or helped manufacture the circumstances that prosecutors now rely upon.
The issue is likely to become central as the defence challenges his credibility and the authenticity and context of the recordings.
The recordings are only part of the story
The State says Wilson’s evidence will not stand alone.
Prosecutors have indicated that they intend to rely on audio and video recordings, social-media communications, telephone data and immigration records.
That is significant because Wilson’s testimony contains a large number of highly specific allegations.
The prosecution will have to connect those allegations to admissible evidence.
The defence, meanwhile, will have the opportunity to examine whether the recordings are complete, whether they have been altered, how they were preserved and whether they accurately reflect the context of the conversations.
The controversy has already spilled beyond the courtroom.
Besigye’s lawyer Eron Kiiza has faced a separate legal battle after the prosecution accused him of making prejudicial social-media statements about Wilson.
The DPP alleged that Kiiza had publicly described Wilson as a liar and his statements as untrue, calling the posts a “parallel trial” in the court of public opinion.
That dispute illustrates just how consequential Wilson’s credibility has become.
The $3 million accusation
The witness’s credibility was challenged even before he began testifying.
Winnie Byanyima, Besigye’s wife, accused Wilson of being a “mercenary for hire” and alleged that he had been contracted for $3 million to conduct a pretext operation against her husband.
The allegation has not been independently established.
Wilson rejected the suggestion that he could be intimidated.
“Be assured, the witness is not intimidated, and be assured the truth will be told globally,” he said.
The exchange transformed the witness’s role from that of a relatively obscure investigator into one of the central figures in Uganda’s increasingly polarised treason proceedings.
The witness and the missing accused
There is another striking feature of Wilson’s testimony.
He has been giving some of the most serious allegations in the case while Besigye himself has been absent from the courtroom.
Besigye collapsed in the dock on July 29 after protesting the continuation of proceedings without his preferred defence lawyers. The incident followed nearly 30 minutes of protest during which Besigye repeatedly struck the dock and demanded that the proceedings stop.
The High Court subsequently ordered a medical assessment of his fitness to stand trial.
The latest psychiatric assessment found that Besigye remains mentally alert and appears able to understand spoken information, but is unable to speak or write and may face substantial difficulty participating meaningfully in his defence.
That creates an extraordinary courtroom contrast.
On one side, a prosecution witness is recounting alleged conversations in which Besigye supposedly discussed weapons, military operations and the removal of Museveni.
On the other, the accused is currently unable to communicate normally and has had his trial continue in his absence.
What the court must ultimately decide
Wilson’s testimony is dramatic, but a criminal trial is not decided by drama.
The court will have to determine whether the evidence establishes the prosecution’s allegations beyond the required legal standard.
At the centre of that assessment will be Wilson himself.
Did he genuinely uncover a conspiracy?
Did Besigye and his associates knowingly engage with the operation he presented to them?
What do the recordings show?
Were the recordings preserved and authenticated?
Do other witnesses, documents, telephone records, immigration records or digital communications corroborate his account?
And perhaps most importantly, where does legitimate undercover investigation end and entrapment begin?
Those questions are yet to be answered.
For now, Wilson’s testimony has given the prosecution its most detailed narrative of the alleged conspiracy — a narrative that stretches from a fictitious foreign company and a phantom $5 million fortune to Kisumu training camps, concealed cameras, alleged weapons routes, drones, an alleged assassination proposal and meetings across several countries.
But every dramatic allegation remains subject to proof.
Besigye and his co-accused have denied the charges, and the court has not found that the alleged conspiracy, assassination plans or weapons operations actually occurred.
The trial therefore enters its next phase with Wilson’s account hanging between two possibilities: a meticulously documented infiltration of a dangerous conspiracy, or the testimony of an operative whose own deceptions make his evidence uniquely vulnerable to challenge.
The answer will not be decided by the witness’s extraordinary story alone.
It will be decided by what the evidence can ultimately prove.
Besigye’s wife Winnie and his lawyer Eron Kiiza have punched holes in the credibility of the Mzungu witness and his evidence. (See Details Here, There and Over There).
Meanwhile, a medical report has offered the latest update on Besigye’s health condition, as detailed HERE.
