Ugandan immigration authorities denied Martha Karua — senior counsel, former Kenyan Justice Minister, and lead counsel for Kizza Besigye — entry at Entebbe International Airport on 22 June 2026, detaining her upon arrival ahead of a scheduled court ruling in Besigye's case. Yahoo News Canada

The timing was unambiguous. Karua was travelling specifically to attend proceedings in Besigye's trial, and her detention at Entebbe meant she was physically prevented from appearing in court on the day a ruling was due. Besigye's remaining legal team responded by walking out of the courtroom in protest, according to 933 KFM, declining to participate in a hearing from which their lead counsel had been excluded — not by any judicial order, but by immigration action at the border.

Kizza Besigye is a four-time Ugandan presidential candidate and the most prominent long-standing opposition figure to President Yoweri Museveni's government. His detention and prosecution have drawn sustained scrutiny from regional civil society and international human rights bodies. The specific charges and procedural status of the current ruling were not fully detailed in available sources as of publication, but the case has been running through Uganda's court system amid persistent defence complaints about due process.

The cross-border dimension sharpened quickly. The Law Society of Kenya issued a threat to bar Ugandan lawyers from practising in Kenya in direct retaliation for Karua's exclusion, per Yahoo News Canada. That is a pointed instrument. Kenya and Uganda are both members of the East African Community, whose legal integration framework — including arrangements for cross-border legal practice — depends on reciprocal professional access. A formal restriction on Ugandan advocates in Kenyan courts would carry immediate practical consequences for any litigant in Kenya currently represented by Ugandan counsel, and would set an adversarial precedent inside a bloc that has spent years building regulatory harmonisation.

Whether the Law Society of Kenya has the institutional authority to unilaterally impose such a ban, or whether it would require action by the Advocates Act or the Law Society Act, is a question that will shape how seriously Kampala takes the threat. As a professional body rather than a government ministry, the LSK's leverage is real but not unlimited.

The broader pattern here is familiar to anyone tracking the judicialization of opposition politics in East Africa. Denying entry to foreign defence counsel at a moment calibrated to disrupt specific proceedings is a tactic that sidesteps judicial orders entirely — immigration authority sits outside the courts, and no bar association or judge can compel an immigration officer to admit a foreign national. It is also difficult to disprove intent when the timing is this precise. Uganda has not, as of publication, offered any public statement explaining the basis for Karua's exclusion.

For Karua personally, this is not her first confrontation with executive power in a regional context. She built a national profile in Kenya partly through her willingness to litigate politically sensitive cases and to challenge government conduct in court. Her involvement in Besigye's defence placed her at the intersection of two governments — one whose judiciary she once served, another whose actions she was engaged to contest.

What follows will depend on whether Kenya's government treats the Law Society's statement as the opening of a formal diplomatic dispute or as professional body noise that Nairobi can keep at arm's length. If the Kenyan government takes up the matter directly, it becomes a bilateral issue between two countries that cannot afford a serious rupture — shared infrastructure, trade flows, and EAC institutional commitments bind them too tightly for open confrontation. If it stays within the bar association register, Uganda can absorb the pressure more easily.

Either way, the walkout by Besigye's legal team means his proceedings on 22 June were effectively conducted without the defence's participation. Whatever ruling was issued that day carries that context.