Uganda’s former Chief of Military Intelligence, Major General James Birungi, is expected to face charges before the General Court Martial, nearly a year after his arrest in August 2025 triggered one of the most significant internal shake-ups in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) in recent memory.
Birungi was detained at Makindye Military Police Prison alongside two former subordinates: Colonel Peter Ahimbisibwe, then Director of Counter-Terrorism, and Lieutenant Colonel Ephraim Byaruhanga, Director of Special Operations. The three face charges reported to include treason, terrorism, corruption and murder.
Their arrest followed a board of inquiry led by Deputy Chief of Defence Forces Lieutenant General Sam Okiding, which examined a string of alleged bombing incidents in Kampala initially blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
According to military and security sources, the inquiry raised doubts about the authenticity of some of these incidents and the intelligence linking them to the ADF including a 2023 report that claimed ADF bomb-maker Meddie Nkalubo had been killed in an airstrike, when he was reportedly still alive. The inquiry is also said to have uncovered financial irregularities within the unit.
Military officials have not publicly detailed the evidence behind the charges, and Birungi has not commented publicly on the allegations.
The case has drawn added attention because two of the co-accused Ahimbisibwe and Byaruhanga are also named as respondents in a separate, unrelated legal matter: a High Court petition filed by opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye and his co-accused Hajji Obeid Lutale.
Besigye and Lutale say they were seized in Nairobi, Kenya, in November 2024 and brought to Uganda, where they were held incommunicado at Makindye Military Barracks a facility not gazetted to hold civilians before being charged before the General Court Martial with security-related offenses and unlawful possession of firearms. Their petition argues the arrest violated Ugandan constitutional protections and international law, and names the two officers, along with UPDF Chief of Defence Forces General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as respondents. It asks the court to nullify the proceedings against them and order their release.
Ugandan officials have previously denied that the state carries out abductions, saying any arrests made abroad are conducted in cooperation with the host country’s authorities. Besigye’s case has drawn criticism from Amnesty International and Kenyan civil society groups, who argue it violated extradition procedures and fair-trial protections; Uganda’s Constitutional Court has twice ruled, in 2006 and 2021, that military courts lack jurisdiction to try civilians, though the practice has continued.
It is not yet clear how, or whether, the misconduct allegations against Ahimbisibwe and Byaruhanga in the Birungi case relate to their roles in the Besigye matter the two prosecutions stem from separate investigations. Supporters of Besigye have pointed to the overlap as reason for scrutiny of the officers’ conduct; this has not been addressed in official statements about either case.
The General Court Martial’s panel was recently reconstituted by President Yoweri Museveni after months without a confirmed bench, clearing the way for several pending military cases including Birungi’s to proceed. Neither the Besigye petition nor the Birungi prosecution has yet been resolved.
