Break-in/Ugandan passport?
Why did they ransack the doctor's apartment and leave him his very own Ugandan passport as a calling card?
shareAmin ordered his goons to steal Nicholas' British passport and replace it with an Ugandan one so that the doctor couldn't leave the country (or at least prevent him from returning to the United Kingdom).
shareBut would having a Ugandan passport necessarily stop the doctor leaving Uganda and/or entering the UK? Did the UK refuse entry to Ugandan passport holders, for instance?
shareThe idea is they took away his identity as a UK citizen. He would be recognized as a citizen of Uganda. And if he tried to go back, he would be deported back to Uganda.
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They took away his identity as a UK citizen.Having your UK passport stolen doesn't automatically mean you lose your UK citizenship.
He would be recognized as a citizen of Uganda.But the UK normally allows dual citizenship. This would only be a problem if the UK had sanctions in place forbidding UK citizens to hold dual citizenship with Uganda. Was this the case during Amin's dictatorship?
And if he tried to go back, he would be deported back to Uganda.Why? Was the UK refusing entry to Ugandan passport holders at the time? In any case, once he landed in the UK it would surely be a simple matter to establish the fact that he was a British citizen. share
Like most dictatorships they were probably restricting the movement of people both in and out of Uganda.
So if he goes to an airport or a border crossing he will be met with Uganda military, they will ask to see ID, they will call it in, he will be detained and Amin will know he tried to run away.
Personally, I would have tried it anyway. Taken that nice car out into the boonies, snuck into some neighboring country, and made for the UK embassy.
In one of the deleted scenes, the English guy said he could get Nicholas out of the country but he refused - instead he decided to kill Amin first
shareThis was back in the 70s. Even travel from France to the United Kingdom probably meant lengthy visa procedures and permits to buy foreign currency from the central bank. While the dual citizenship was made possible in Britain in 1948, it was much unheard of in most of the world and Uganda almost certainly didn't allow it, so Amin had pretext to confiscate Garrigan's passport and claim that he had become a citizen of Uganda, therefore renouncing his British citizenship. The British could of course contest that but not necessarily, especially as Garrigan had antagonized them already and the British were not keen on meddling with the affairs of their former colonies.
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