A serving Ugandan UPDF intelligence officer has come out to denounce the army and corroborate one of Uganda’s most disturbing images of 2026 – the leaked video of opposition activist Sam Mugumya crippled and unable to walk after a year in secret detention.
In a 30-minute video statement dated September 30, 2026, Lieutenant Herbert Mabonga Matanda identifies himself as an intelligence officer at the Defence Intelligence and Security Headquarters, Mbuya – the former Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). He says he joined the UPDF on August 8, 2011, served as Aide-de-Camp to the late Gen. Aronda Nyakairima (2014-2015) and later to Brig. Tom Kawia, Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence (2019-2025).
Saying his conscience can no longer hold, Mabonga announces he is declaring himself a non-member of the UPDF.
“Matters that relate to arbitrary arrests, disappearances, kidnappings, abductions, torture, my heart cannot uphold anymore,” he says.
He says he has authored a comprehensive document on the state of the nation covering governance, misuse of UPDF human resources, killing of Ugandans and foreigners, militia groups, sectarianism, corruption, and human rights abuses documented on page 8 of his dossier.
In the core of his testimony, Lt. Mabonga moves to human rights victims in the hands of military personnel.
“The country has long heard of Mr Sam Mugumya… is a victim of all forms of torture in some safe house, which is under SFC command within Entebbe,” he says.
He then adds the line that directly explains the video that went viral two months earlier:
“Sam Mugumya is a disabled person. He cannot move. He was tortured to disability. Some of the victims, you will observe, are crippling. In a safe house, you are going to observe them.”
On July 31, 2026, National Unity Platform President Robert Kyagulanyi posted a leaked video on X. It showed Mugumya, 47, a former aide to Dr. Kizza Besigye and an FDC mobiliser, in a severely weakened condition.
The man in the video is emaciated, bony, and seated next to a rollator walking frame. He struggles to stand. According to lawyers who later filed a habeas corpus application on September 7, 2026, Mugumya had by then spent more than a year in detention without charge.
Mugumya was abducted on August 26, 2025, while having breakfast at NIM Hotel in Nyamitanga, Mbarara City, by armed men in a drone. Authorities did not produce him in court nor acknowledge custody. His legal team alleges he was held incommunicado at the SFC facility in Kasenyi – a military installation not gazetted for civilian detainees and the same location Mabunga points to.
Inside the Safe Houses
Lt. Mabonga says he is not speaking from speculation. “I have been in one safe house. I have witnessed what people go through. I have recorded videos of victims in the safe houses.”
He alleges that very young men are held for years on direct orders of the CDF, under the supervision of the SFC Brigadier, and that President Yoweri Museveni – who he says they tried to inform through official reports – is fully aware.
“We have written reports, even submitted them to the president… they have always told us that, yes, the president is aware,” he says, adding that when he was selected to meet the President, he was instead kept for nine months in Entebbe, his home cordoned off nightly by JAT operatives, his salary stopped, fearing poisoning.
He names other alleged victims of the same system: Dr. Sarah Bireete, Hon. Dr. Miria Matembe, Counsel Gideon Tugume, former Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Hon. Muwanga Kivumbi, Hon. Lina Zedriga, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga, Father Deus Sekabira, Christopher Godi aka King Saha, Kenyans allegedly abducted and held over 30 days in Entebbe, and Kenyan Senior Counsel Martha Karua, who was deported after representing Besigye.
Lt. Mabonga now dares the system to disown his statement with facts
“I want anybody within the UPDF to come out and disagree with me… I have evidence on each one of these statements… I better go to the grave than continuously observe what I saw.”
He says he will publish his full document for every Ugandan to read and urges citizens not to be distracted by state-created diversions.
For many Ugandans, the officer’s face and the activist’s frail body on a walker have now become one story: the leaked video that was once an allegation is now being presented by an insider as evidence from within the dungeon.
