Ugandan Pop Star MP Rearrested While Seeking Treatment Abroad

Ugandan singer-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, was being held at a government hospital Friday after being rearrested while attempting to seek medical treatment abroad.

Kyagulanyi — who faces treason charges alongside 32 others after President Yoweri Museveni’s car window was allegedly broken by a tossed stone — was released on bail on Monday but seized by police Thursday evening at Entebbe airport, outside the capital Kampala.

“The Uganda Police have violently blocked Bobi Wine from travelling outside of the country in spite of the court declining to do so when being released on bail earlier in the week,” said his Ugandan lawyer Nicholas Opiyo. “This is absurd to say the least.”

During his bail hearing on Monday the judge had allowed Kyagulanyi to keep his passport, against the wishes of state prosecutors.

The MP’s international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said: “Bobi Wine was fully within his rights to travel for medical treatment. Again, he has done nothing wrong. Again, he has broken no law. And again, the police beat him and detained him and will later make up some sort of false excuse.”