Police paid Makerere Shs 59.32m to transcribe Besigye audio recordings

Makerere University was paid Shs 59.32 million to transcribe more than 24 hours of audio recordings allegedly linked to meetings involving jailed opposition politician Dr Kizza Besigye, a police detective has told the High court.

Detective Inspector Benedict Odyek testified on Thursday that the recordings, extracted from electronic devices submitted for forensic examination, ran for 24 hours, 43 minutes and 15 seconds. He said Makerere charged Shs 40,000 per minute for the transcription.

Odyek, 56, is attached to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) headquarters and has 32 years of investigative experience. He is one of three detectives working on the case under the supervision of Commissioner of Police Lydia Kantono.

The other two are Detective Inspectors Nelson Natumanya and Wilbern Tworekirwe. He told trial judge Emmanuel Baguma that he took the audio materials to Makerere University’s Centre of Languages for transcription in September 2025.

Odyek said he first visited the centre on September 3, obtained a quotation and invoice, and returned on September 5 with a formal request letter before making the payment.

The quotation presented in court was signed by Mary Katungi, the centre’s client relations officer.

Recordings extracted from concealed devices

Odyek said the recordings had been extracted from electronic devices he received from Andrew Wilson, also known as Orlando, and Wilson’s friend Moses Barasa.

The exhibits included three mobile phones, a hard drive with a concealed camera, a power bank with a concealed camera, a wall socket with a concealed camera, a magnetic listening device, a watch described in court as an “attitude chronometer” and a USB cable.

According to Odyek, Wilson told him that the devices had been used to record Besigye, Joel Wakayima and Frank Kihehere during meetings in Geneva, Switzerland; Athens, Greece; and Nairobi, Kenya.

Wilson allegedly told investigators that the meetings concerned plans to overthrow the Ugandan government. Odyek also said Wilson claimed that Besigye’s co-accused, Obeid Lutale, attended the Nairobi meeting with a Kurdish associate.

These accounts were attributed to Wilson by the investigating officer. The allegations have not been established by the evidence described in Odyek’s testimony.

Odyek told the court that he received most of the exhibits on March 21 and March 27, 2025, while others were handed to him on September 9 that year. He said he labelled the exhibits with his initials before submitting them for forensic examination.

On March 25, 2025, he obtained a court order signed by grade one magistrate Opio Charles Kangira authorising the police forensic unit to examine the exhibits.

The order directed the head of the Cyber Crimes Department in the Directorate of Forensics to image, analyse and extract information from the devices and prepare a report. Odyek also swore an affidavit on the same date in support of the application for the extraction of information.

He said he collected the forensic report and a 64-gigabyte flash drive containing extracted audio and video files from the Cyber Crimes Department in Naguru on September 2, 2025.

The report was prepared by Superintendent of Police Kenneth Angulu, the head of the forensic department, identified in the proceedings as Examiner No. 9.

Odyek said the recordings included audio in which Besigye could be heard introducing himself and Lutale. He later copied selected material onto a 16-gigabyte flash drive for transcription, explaining that some information on the larger drive was irrelevant to the treason investigation.

Defence challenges disclosure of documents

The testimony also prompted a dispute over the disclosure of evidence to the defence.

Defence lawyer Farouk Kizito Kamulegeya objected to the admission of the court order authorising access to information on the devices, saying the defence had not received a copy and needed to verify its authenticity.

He also objected to the quotation and invoice from Makerere University, arguing that the documents had not been disclosed to the defence.

Kamulegeya asked the court to direct the prosecution, represented by Chief State Attorney Richard Birivumbuka, to provide all outstanding documents.

Lawyers representing Captain Denis Oola, led by Sylvia Namawejje Ebitu, supported the application, saying they had been taken by surprise by documents they were seeing for the first time.

Judge Baguma directed the prosecution to disclose the remaining documents to the defence. He admitted the contested court order, subject to it being shown to be inauthentic.

The case will resume on November 2 for cross-examination of Odyek.

Treason allegations

Besigye, Lutale and Oola are accused of treason over alleged meetings in Uganda, Kenya, Greece and Switzerland to solicit funding, obtain weapons and organise paramilitary activities.

Besigye is being tried in absentia while on remand at Luzira Prison, while Lutale and Oola attend court in person.

The prosecution alleges that Besigye met Wilson, whom it describes as a Kurdish intelligence operative, and received $5,000 to facilitate the transportation of 36 Ugandans to Kisumu, Kenya, for military training. Prosecutors say the group was intercepted and deported before the training began.

The State further alleges that the accused planned to obtain surface-to-air missiles, ricin poison and counterfeit currency, and use drones to assassinate President Yoweri Museveni.

The prosecution has indicated that it will rely on witness testimony, audio and video recordings, social media communications, immigration records and telephone data to support its case.

The allegations remain before the court.

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