Kidnapped actor now mental case

Nov 22, 2006

ACTOR Hajji Ashraf Ssimwogerere is undergoing psychiatric treatment at Mulago Hospital. Dr. Musisi Ssegane, a consultant psychiatrist, is attending to Ssimwogerere.

By Chris Kiwawulo

ACTOR Hajji Ashraf Ssimwogerere is undergoing psychiatric treatment at Mulago Hospital. Dr. Musisi Ssegane, a consultant psychiatrist, is attending to Ssimwogerere.

Ssimwogerere was on Monday discovered by Moses Ojomba, tied and dumped at a railway line in Kireka, three days after he was reportedly kidnapped from the National Theatre.

The psychiatric intervention followed a visit by the hospital deputy director, Dr. Isaac Ezati, who recommended it.
Ezati declined to comment on the issue, saying, “It is unethical to divulge patients’ secrets to the public.”

But sources said given what he went through, Ssimwogerere was emotionally tortured and needed psychiatric attention alongside other medical treatment.
At the time he was admitted, the Diamonds Ensemble artistic director had been complaining of headache, backache and was hypertensive.

By yesterday afternoon, Ssimwogerere was still admitted to Ward 6C, where Police deployed plain-clothes officers. All visitors had to register in a book.
Ssimwogerere said he still felt pain in his back and his pressure was still high. “The man pressed my back with his knee as he tied me up,” Ssimwogerere said, adding that many people by-passed him on the railway line, accusing him of over-drinking.

Ssimwogerere said his kidnappers, who spoke fluent Luganda, kept him in a clean, self-contained room and forced him to write the script of the second part of his movie entitled, ‘Who pulled the trigger?’
“They ordered me to write the contents of my script within 48 hours to secure my release and I wrote something. But it was under duress,” he said.

His wife Sharifa and father Hajji Abdullah Mukiibi were present.

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