Chinese investor Li Wen Jie challenges deportation

Corporate News

Prof Dong Guo, the CEO of Catham Properties, was deported last year. PHOTO | WILLIAM OERI 

By BRIAN WASUNA, Bwasuna@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Li Wen Jie wants the High Court to quash his deportation earlier this month, arguing that he was expelled despite providing documented and oral evidence that he was in the country conducting business legally.

Chinese entrepreneur Li Wen Jie has challenged his deportation from the country following a vicious row over three prime properties in Nairobi’s Kilimani that also saw his former business partner banished from Kenya last year.

Mr Jie wants the High Court to quash his deportation earlier this month, arguing that he was expelled despite providing documented and oral evidence that he was in the country conducting business legally.

He has filed the suit alongside his current business partner Peng Zhang and the company they used to buy the three Kilimani parcels of land — Catham Properties.

Mr Zhang says that since the deportation of Mr Jie, police have been stalking him and are planning to expel him from the country at the command of the Immigration Department. Mr Zhang adds that he has since been detained by the police without reason.

“On August 8, Mr Jie and I attended the office of the director of Immigration together with our counsel Gibson Kamau Kuria and Tobias Ongalo and presented both oral and documentary evidence to prove that we were lawfully residing in Kenya,” Mr Zhang says in court documents.

“The last time I saw Mr Jie, he had been put in handcuffs and taken by other officers to an unknown destination. Mr Jie called my advocate from China and informed him that he was driven straight to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The officers bought him a business class ticket to Guangzhou via Kenya Airways.’’

Mr Jie claims that he was deported on the strength of an article that appeared in a local daily accusing him of defrauding another Chinese businessman of Sh300 million and control in the company which was used to buy the three parcels of land.

Mr Zhang says that police have been trailing him and plan to deport him without following procedure, as they allegedly did with his business partner.

READ: Chinese tycoons wage legal battle over Sh300m prime city land

Mr Jie has been fighting in court with another Chinese businessman — Guo Dong — over the Kilimani properties. Mr Dong was deported last year, a move he claims was orchestrated by Mr Jie who allegedly bribed immigration officials to expel him from Kenya.

Mr Dong claimed that Mr Jie tricked him into contributing Sh300 million for the purchase of the Kilimani properties. He says Mr Jie had negotiated for a Sh600 million purchase price. Mr Dong held that after contributing Sh326 million, Mr Jie orchestrated his deportation.

But Mr Zhang, Mr Jie’s business partner, holds that the properties were worth Sh210 million.

Mr Zhang adds that Mr Jie was the middleman who negotiated the purchase on behalf of Catham Properties.

“Mr Jie negotiated the purchase of the three properties. I was shocked when I learnt that the respondents had purported to illegally deport him without following any procedure and without informing us of the reasons for that action.

“At about 4pm on August 18, I learnt that a vehicle from Kilimani police station had parked outside my house,” Mr Zhang adds.