Court rules on NUP’s Mufumbiro bail application today

KAMPALA - Kawempe Chief Magistrate’s Court is expected to rule today (April 10) on jailed National Unity Platform (NUP) party deputy spokesperson Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro’s bail application to enable him bury his wife, who died two days ago.

Katende lost her long-running battle with breast cancer aged 41 at Platinum Specialists Hospital in Kampala, leaving Mufumbiro widowed with four young children.

She will be buried on Saturday (April 11) in Busiiro village, Luuka district.

“Tomorrow (today) we’ll be at Kawempe Magistrate’s Court for a scheduled ruling on his (Mufumbiro’s) bail application and the other political prisoners,” the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LOP), Joel Ssenyonyi, said on Thursday.

He said the passing of Mufumbiro’s wife was “so painful, especially because of the circumstances that surround it”.

He recalled that by the time her husband was arrested last year, she was on treatment for cancer.

“Her situation kept deteriorating, and the pressures of her husband’s detention didn’t make things any better,” Ssenyonyi, who is also Nakawa West MP and NUP spokesperson, added.

Former LOP Winnie Kiiza also took to X and eulogised the deceased for her “brave fight” with cancer.

“In her, I mourn a wife, a mother, and a quiet force of strength that carried unimaginable burdens alone while her spouse, comrade Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, remains [in] prison,” she wrote.

Kiiza, who is also the former Kasese Woman MP, added that the deceased embodied that silent courage and fought for her life while his husband was in jail.

NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya, who visited Mufumbiro at Luzira Upper Prison in Kampala alongside other party members, said he (Mufumbiro) was devastated by the sad news, which he first learnt from fellow prisoners who heard it on radio.

“His greatest regret is that he was not able to be by her side as she breathed her last. He hopes against hope that he can be released on bail so that he lays her to rest,” he said in a post on X.

Mufumbiro is accused of holding unlawful assembly and military drilling alongside 10 others.

Prosecution alleges that he and his co-accused conducted a meeting where individuals were trained in military-style exercises without authorisation from the internal affairs minister, contrary to Section 45 of the Penal Code Act. 

He was denied bail on October 30, 2025, on grounds that his release could interfere with ongoing investigations.

Mufumbiro’s party, which claims the charges against him were trumped up, shared his letter from prison requesting the Chief Justice Dr Flavian Zeija to authorise his temporary release to enable him to bury his wife.

“In the final days of her release, as her condition deteriorated and it became clear that she would not recover, Edith, in the presence of my family members, expressed her last and most earnest wish; that I be by her side and that I be permitted to lay her to rest,” he wrote.

Mufumbiro told the Chief Justice that this was the very reason he decided to appeal to his office for his temporary release.

“I pray thee that you entreat the Chief Magistrate, Nakawa Chief Magistrate’s Court, and the Grade 1 as their supervisor, to grant me bail to be able to bury my wife,” he wrote in a letter dated April 8, 2026.

Mufumbiro said his wife has been battling cancer for a considerable time. “I approach Your Lordship not as a man who disregards the law, but as a man who is taking the law in its most human and dignified expression to permit me one final act of love for my wife.” 

He also said he was willing to abide by the release conditions that Dr Zeija would deem necessary in the circumstances.

NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi claims the “unlawful drilling” apparently took place on February 12, 2025, at NUP headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Kampala.

“In fact, on that day, Waiswa never stepped there as he was at Mulago Cancer Institute with his wife,” he said in an X post that announced the death of Mufumbiro’s wife.
Rubongoya also claimed on that day of February 12, 2025, NUP deputy spokesperson was at Uganda Cancer Institute, “desperately trying to get medical attention for his wife”.