Uganda deports Karua, declares her persona non grata in blow to EAC rule of law
Senior Counsel Martha Karua
Kenya’s senior counsel held incommunicado at Entebbe, phones seized, then forced onto return flight as region’s legal fraternity erupts in condemnation
By MKT Reporter
Uganda deported Senior Counsel Martha Karua on Monday after detaining her incommunicado at Entebbe International Airport, confiscating her phones and forcing her onto a return flight to Nairobi — a dramatic sequence of events that has drawn fierce condemnation from legal bodies across the region and raised profound questions about the future of justice and free movement within the East African Community.
Karua, who serves as lead counsel for veteran Ugandan opposition politician Dr Kizza Besigye and Hajji Obeid Lutale in an ongoing high-profile treason case, had travelled to Kampala to support the defence team of her colleague, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago. She arrived at Entebbe aboard a Kenya Airways flight at 8:50 a.m. alongside Law Society of Kenya President Charles Kanjama and two other legal colleagues. What happened next was, by her own account, swift, deliberate and deeply alarming.
“I arrived at Entebbe Airport at 8:50 aboard KQ and I was with three others,” Karua told journalists after her return to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. “I only had hand luggage and while waiting for my colleagues, an immigration officer came and told me she had been told that she had made a mistake and there was a note on me. I was taken to a man called the Principal Immigration Officer at the airport and I told them there is no problem. By then, two of his juniors had already snatched my phones by force. They did not even ask me. They are very ill-behaved fellows.”
Karua was held incommunicado for several hours in a restricted transit area. Security officials switched off her mobile phones to prevent any external communication during the ordeal before she was forced onto a return flight to Nairobi. She later said officers wanted to take her to a holding cell, but she insisted on waiting at the Kenya Airways lounge for the next available flight home. She left her phone behind upon departure, fearing it had been tampered with.
Speaking upon her arrival at JKIA, Karua accused Ugandan authorities of interference with the legal defence of Besigye. “This is political persecution of Besigye, and it is interference with his defence because the hearing of his case was even supposed to start last week,” she said. Her verdict on the day’s events was unambiguous: the deportation was not an immigration matter. It was a political act.
A letter from Uganda’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, seen by KFM, confirmed that Karua had been formally declared persona non grata — a designation typically reserved in diplomacy for foreign nationals deemed unwelcome by a host government. No reasons were given. Uganda’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and immigration authorities had not issued a formal statement clarifying the legal or security grounds for the decision by press time.
The incident did not occur in isolation. The legal entanglement dates to November 2024, when Besigye was allegedly abducted in Nairobi during Karua’s book launch and secretly transferred to Uganda, where he has since faced trial before a military court. Karua has been co-lead counsel in his defence ever since. Then, on 15 June 2026, Uganda’s Special Forces Command raided the home of Kampala Lord Mayor and Besigye co-counsel Erias Lukwago, arresting him. His arrest was first publicly confirmed not by police or the courts, but by a social media post on X from Chief of Defence Forces General Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Lukwago has since been charged with misprision of treason — the offence of concealing knowledge of a plot to overthrow the government. On Monday, the same day Karua was deported, Lukwago was brought before Makindye Chief Magistrate’s Court, where his bail ruling was deferred and he was further remanded. He is due back in court on 30 June.
LSK President Charles Kanjama, who was cleared by immigration officials while Karua was turned away, described her deportation as an affront to regional integration. “Senior Counsel Martha Karua was issued with a special licence to practise in Uganda but to our dismay, when she came on a legitimate observatory mission, her passport was duly stamped but it is unfortunate that she was then denied entry and forcibly deported,” he said. “This development undermines the spirit of East African integration because we believe that for a bigger picture — including the East African Federation — to be achieved, we must start with the free movement of labour.”
The condemnation extended far beyond the legal fraternity. Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka visited Karua alongside former Chief Justice David Maraga and former Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi, among others. “What transpired is deeply troubling and sets a dangerous precedent for our region,” Kalonzo said. “The arbitrary denial of entry to a respected leader and Senior Counsel is not only an affront to her dignity, but also a direct violation of the principles that underpin the East African Community.” He warned that the incident reflected shrinking democratic space across the region. “We must not allow the continued shrinking of democratic space within our region to become the norm. Today it is Martha Karua, tomorrow it could be any voice that dares to stand for justice,” he said, adding: “We stand in full solidarity with Martha Karua and with all those who continue to champion a just, open, and democratic East Africa.”
Ugandan defence lawyer Medard Lubega Sseggona, speaking outside Makindye Court as news of the deportation filtered through Kampala, was direct in his assessment. “What would you expect a coward to do? I know that Martha Karua has not been denied entry but detained at the airport and deported. It is not within the spirit of the East African Community. As a professional, I am deeply concerned that an accused person is entitled to have a lawyer of his or her choice from anywhere,” he said.
The East Africa Law Society noted pointedly that Karua held a valid Ugandan practising certificate registered through Lukwago’s law firm. This was also not Karua’s first deportation in the region. She was deported from Tanzania last year to prevent her from attending the court case of opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who also faces treason charges. The pattern is difficult to dismiss.
Both the Law Society of Kenya and the East Africa Law Society have demanded a formal explanation from Kampala, citing EAC treaty obligations on the free movement of persons, the independence of legal practitioners and the right of accused persons to counsel of their choice. The Uganda Law Society announced it would stage a nationwide strike on 26 June in protest at what it described as ongoing lawlessness and disregard for the rule of law.
The Besigye case has always been more than a domestic criminal matter. His alleged abduction from Kenyan soil, his detention in a Ugandan maximum security prison without bail for more than eighteen months, his trial before a military tribunal despite being a civilian, and now the deportation of his lead counsel from two different EAC member states — each development has chipped away at the credibility of regional institutions and the bloc’s founding commitments to governance, human rights and the rule of law.
What happened at Entebbe on Monday was not merely an immigration decision. It was a message — and the region heard it clearly.
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