According to his lawyer, a Ugandan court has issued an arrest warrant for an international award-winning novelist who fled to Germany last month to seek treatment for injuries he claims were caused by security agents during torture.
On Wednesday, the warrant was issued.
Kakwenza Rukirabashaija was detained in December and kept for about a month before being charged with communications charges in connection with tweets criticising President Yoweri Museveni and his son.
His lawyer, Eron Kiiza, told Reuters that the court had issued an arrest warrant for him. “It’s simply more of his harassment since the court had the option of trying him in his absence, which is legal, but they chose to ignore it.”
Rukirabashaija said he was tortured by security agents during his imprisonment after his release in January. Images of his body revealed torture marks, causing indignation among the people.
He informed local network NTV that he was punched in the stomach, kicked, slapped with gun butts, and forced to dance for hours, and that his tormentors tore flesh from various places of his body with pliers.
Police have stated that they are unable to comment on the allegations of torture because they are a part of Rukirabashaija’s court case.
In February, he stated that he had fled the country, saying that he would seek treatment in Germany.
Rukirabashaija is a satirist best known for his work Greedy Barbarian, which criticises governmental oppression and corruption in a fictional country. The book was widely interpreted in Uganda as a jab at Museveni’s government.
Last year, he was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize for International Courageous Writers. He is the second Museveni critic to depart Uganda this year, following the announcement in January by Stella Nyanzi, a university instructor, that she had gone to Germany.
