One way of looking at John ‘Bosco’ Nyombi’s hellish journey is to see it as an epic battle of resistance – how one man and his supporters overcame the efforts of two government machines to crush him. But such battles are unprovoked wars and the scars they leave endure despite the victory won.
John left quite a comfortable life in Uganda in September 2001, but as a gay man he knew he could have wound up with a life sentence in prison. He wanted to go to any English-speaking country and that’s why he ended up in Britain, having paid money to an agent to get a passport and air ticket. He probably thought his chances of getting a good job were high as he had been working in a bank in Uganda. As he puts it: ‘I had my own life, I had my own house, I had a car: I had everything.
