Doctor 'trapped' in Uganda

A SYDNEY cardiologist whose wife was killed in an execution-style slaying in Uganda has issued a plea to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for urgent diplomatic help to ensure his safety and freedom.

A SYDNEY cardiologist whose wife was killed in an execution-style slaying in Uganda has issued a plea to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for urgent diplomatic help to ensure his safety and freedom.

Aggrey Kiyingi, 52, told The Australian yesterday from a safe house in Kampala that he had received advice from high-ranking sources that he was in grave danger.

"I'm trapped here. I'm being prevented from leaving," Dr Kiyingi said.

"I'm now very concerned about my safety and a threat of rearrest. My lawyers are also concerned about my safety. I want peace. I want to save my life. I want to be permitted to return to Sydney, but things are getting desperate now."

The Australian citizen, who raised his four children in Sydney and set up a cardiology practice in the western suburb of Merrylands after emigrating in the early 1980s, has been unable to leave Uganda since being acquitted last week of the murder of his wife, lawyer Robinah Kiyingi.

"My message to the Australian Government is they should use their officers to make sure the Ugandan Government does not play any tricks," Dr Kiyingi said.

"I call upon the Ugandan Government to remove any hindrances to my safe passage. My original Australian passport has been cancelled. My Ugandan passport is not being returned to me. My lawyers are being given flimsy excuses every day from the authorities, which are not returning my passport. I can't access any funds. But I need to stay alive to get out."

Dr Kiyingi said his acquittal had led to fierce criticism of the prosecution for running a flimsy case and had severely embarrassed the Ugandan authorities.

After being cleared and freed from custody, Dr Kiyingi held a media conference at the headquarters of his Kampala technology company, Dehezi International, and vowed to sue the Ugandan Government for malicious prosecution - a vow he now regrets.

"I want to make a public declaration now that I will not sue the Ugandan Government," he said.

Dr Kiyingi's defence lawyer, MacDusman Kabega, revealed yesterday that Ugandan authorities had decided to make Dr Kiyingi's passport a formal exhibit in the trial. Now the state has filed a notice to appeal the verdict, which makes it difficult for him to get his passport back.

"As far as I'm concerned, his passport had no evidentiary value," Mr Kabega said. "I believe they want to keep it to stop him from leaving the country."

Dr Kiyingi's trial was monitored by the Australian High Commission's Nairobi-based officer, Leann Johnston, who went on leave on Friday.

Mr Downer's media adviser, Tony Parkinson, did not return The Australian's call.

A consular official in Kenya said: "I'm aware of the situation but we are not in a position to make any comment."

Robinah, who was about to divorce Dr Kiyingi, was the Uganda chairwoman of Transparency International. She was murdered in July last year by a gunman who fired seven bullets from an AK-47 into her head and body as she sat in her car outside the gates to her Kampala home.

Dr Kiyingi, who was in Sydney at the time, was arrested at her graveside and accused of commissioning a contract killer to murder her, a charge he emphatically denied.