By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA (Reuters) – A Ugandan author who had spent nearly a month in jail after criticising President Yoweri Museveni has fled the country, the lawyer said on Wednesday.
Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, an internationally acclaimed writer, was released from jail in late January after being detianed in late December for communications offences related to a series of tweets he posted about Museveni and his son, an army general.
“Yes, he has fled,” his lawyer Eron Kiiza told Reuters, adding he was destined to somewhere in Europe.
Kiiza said even after being released, Rukirabashaija was kept under security agents’ surveillance.
“So when he asked for his passport and the court refused to give it to him, he had to make up his mind and make a choice between his life or wait for court. He has decided to chose his life,” Kiiza said.
Rukirabashaija was kept incommunicado for much of the time he was held in a detention facility, Kiiza said previously, and was only produced in court after widespread domestic and international pressure including by the United States and the European Union.
Police spokesman Fred Enanga said he could not comment on Rukirabashaija’s matter since it was in court.
The novelist, who last year won the PEN Pinter Prize for international writers of courage, is best-known for “The Greedy Barbarian”, a novel about corruption in a fictional country widely interpreted as a satire on Museveni.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
