From State Witness to Accused: Ex-Spy Chief Birungi Charged With Fabricating Intelligence in Besigye Case

KAMPALA — Major General James Birungi, Uganda’s former military intelligence chief and a listed state witness in the treason case against opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye, has himself been charged with treachery and security-related offences — accusations that he fabricated intelligence, including fake terror threats, to siphon government funds.
The General Court Martial sitting at Makindye, chaired by Brigadier General Richard Tukacungurwa, formally arraigned Birungi on Monday, nearly a year after his initial arrest in August 2025. He appeared alongside three other Uganda People’s Defence Forces officers, including Lieutenant Colonel Ephraim Byaruhanga, former Director of Special Operations, who face separate murder charges linked to the fatal shootings of two suspected suicide bombers — a woman near Kalerwe Market and a man near the Munyonyo Catholic shrine during Uganda Martyrs Day security operations.
Journalists were barred from photographing or reporting from inside the courtroom, with Major Alex Echeru, the officer overseeing Birungi’s prison escort, enforcing the restriction. The court remanded Birungi and his co-accused to Makindye Military Barracks until August 3, when they are due back for further proceedings.
A intelligence chief under scrutiny
Birungi, who headed the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence — since restructured into the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) — was removed from his subsequent post as commander of the Mountain Infantry Division by Chief of Defence Forces General Muhoozi Kainerugaba in mid-2025, just two months after taking up the role. His arrest that August followed an internal board of inquiry, led by Deputy Chief of Defence Forces Lieutenant General Sam Okiding, into suspected improvised explosive devices in Kampala that had initially been blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
That inquiry reportedly found evidence of compromised intelligence operations, manipulated threat assessments, and misuse of operational funds within the directorate. Investigators are said to be examining whether Birungi’s unit fabricated bomb threats and falsified intelligence about counterfeit fuel operations and suicide bombers as a means of extracting money from the state.
The Besigye connection
The case carries particular weight because Birungi was among ten witnesses the state had lined up to testify against Besigye, his aide Hajji Obeid Lutale Kamulegeya, and Capt. Denis Oola in the ongoing treason trial — a case built on the trio’s alleged 2024 plot to overthrow the government. Human rights lawyer Eron Kiiza has pointed to what he calls a striking contradiction: two of the now-detained officers, Byaruhanga and Colonel Peter Ahimbisibwe, are simultaneously named as respondents in a separate High Court case brought by Besigye and Lutale challenging the legality of their alleged abduction from Nairobi in November 2024.
“The officers who abducted Besigye — and a witness lined up to testify against him — have themselves been detained over the fabrication of intelligence and now face the Court Martial,” Kiiza said.
Military prosecutors are reportedly seeking to hold parts of Birungi’s trial behind closed doors, citing concerns that open proceedings could expose sensitive intelligence operations and implicate additional senior officers. Security sources say the push for secrecy also reflects fears that a public hearing could surface further allegations of fabricated threats and resource misuse within the military’s intelligence apparatus.
Birungi faces charges that carry a maximum penalty of death upon conviction — the same potential sentence confronting Besigye in the case where Birungi was set to testify against him.

SOURCE NILE POST