This photo, shared by Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria, shows Dr Miguna
Miguna preparing to disembark from the plane on landing in Dubai on
March 29, 2018. PHOTO | COURTESY | FACEBOOK
Dr Miguna Miguna, the self-declared general of the National
Resistance Movement, was bundled into a plane and dumped in Dubai by two
officers from the elite General Service Unit on Wednesday night, the Nation has established.
The
two officers, drawn from a squad that specialises in escorting
deportees, sandwiched Dr Miguna during the five-hour journey from
Nairobi to the United Arab Emirates.
And, while Dr
Miguna claimed he had been drugged before being put on the Emirates
plane, a senior security officer denied the claim.
The
denial, however, did not subtract anything from Dr Miguna’s long nights
of isolation, humiliation and sheer brutality as police tried to silence
the controversial lawyer at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA),
where he was held for two days after refusing to sign immigration
papers and have his Canadian passport stamped.
CITIZENSHIP
Deported in February, Dr Miguna claims Kenyan and Canadian citizenship, but the government says he renounced his Kenyan birth right when he acquired his Canadian passport.
Deported in February, Dr Miguna claims Kenyan and Canadian citizenship, but the government says he renounced his Kenyan birth right when he acquired his Canadian passport.
Our reconstruction of the events
leading to his second ejection from the country is obtained from the
accounts of a human rights activist who spent more than five hours with
Dr Miguna, Dr Miguna himself, and an immigration official.
Mr Kamanda Mucheke, the principal human rights officer at the
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), was the only civilian
granted access to Dr Miguna on the day he was deported, and says police
officers pounced on the opposition activist after he left to buy him
food at 8.30pm on Wednesday.
Before that, he said, all
seemed calm, although there was no sign that Dr Miguna would be released
from a “very hot and stuffy” toilet meant for the disabled that was his
cell at JKIA for more than 24 hours.
POLICE BRUTALITY
It was while he was at a café within the terminus waiting for the food to be packed that events started unfolding.
The first was a frantic run by lawyers Nelson Havi and Julie Soweto towards the café.
“They
were in panic,” Mr Mucheke said. “They had been beaten and wanted to
quickly exit the airport because GSU officers were pursuing them.”
Sensing danger, Mr Mucheke ran towards his car but before he could get in, Dr Miguna called him in distress.
"They are killing me," he told me. "Please come quickly and inform everyone."
But
the phone was abruptly switched off. He rushed back to Terminal 2,
where Mr Miguna was being held, only to be confronted by more than 100
GSU officers “armed to the teeth”.
EMIRATES
Unable to access Dr Miguna, Mr Mucheke retreated to his car and called his supervisor, KNCHR chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori.
Unable to access Dr Miguna, Mr Mucheke retreated to his car and called his supervisor, KNCHR chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori.
He left the airport a few minutes past midnight.
About
an hour earlier, at 10.58pm, pro-Jubilee blogger Pauline Njoroge, who
last December got a Head of State commendation, had tweeted that the
lawyer had “made himself comfortable on seat 45J” of the Emirates plane
to Dubai.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria also took to his Facebook page at 11.23pm to announce that Dr Miguna was on the same flight as him.
Airport data indicates that the plane left Nairobi at 11.19pm on Wednesday.
DETAINED
Mr Jimmy Edwin Nyikuli, a legal officer in the investigations and prosecution section of the Immigration Department, said in an affidavit filed in the High Court in Nairobi that Dr Miguna could only be deported on an Emirates flight since that had been his carrier when he landed in Kenya on Monday.
Mr Jimmy Edwin Nyikuli, a legal officer in the investigations and prosecution section of the Immigration Department, said in an affidavit filed in the High Court in Nairobi that Dr Miguna could only be deported on an Emirates flight since that had been his carrier when he landed in Kenya on Monday.
“He was declared an undocumented
person and the Emirates compelled to return him to his country of last
embarkation,” Mr Nyikuli, who also denied that Dr Miguna had been held
incommunicado in a toilet at JKIA, said.
Dr Miguna says
about 50 “heavily armed thugs” led by a uniformed policeman who had
commanded them on Monday “violently broke into the toilet I had been
detained incommunicado in at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport” on Wednesday
night.
“They didn’t identify themselves and wrestled
me to the ground, held onto and sat on me as a group of four different
thugs injected substances to both my soles, arms, hands, both sides of
my ribs and basically all over my body until I passed out,” he wrote on
his Facebook account on Thursday.
POLICE OFFICER
After they landed in Dubai, he asked the person seated next to him where they were, and he was duly informed.
After they landed in Dubai, he asked the person seated next to him where they were, and he was duly informed.
He says the stranger looked like a “Flying Squad police officer”.
He said he had pains in his chest, left wrist, right elbow and feet, and checked into hospital in the country.
KNCHR,
which has been following up on the Miguna case because of a court order
and will be filing a report in court, also said it was disappointed by
some of the lawyer’s decisions.
“I was disappointed
with Dr Miguna because the court order had allowed him to use his
Canadian passport to gain entry into the country,” Ms Mbogori, the KNCHR
chair, said.
“I had expected him at least to use it to
gain entry into the country, and his refusal boggled us. There were
some missteps on both sides.”
PASSPORT
The Department of Immigration had on Tuesday issued application papers to Miguna to enable him start the process of enabling him regain his Kenyan citizenship as ordered by the courts, and to also facilitate his entry into the country after he refused to produce the Canadian passport he had used to travel back to Kenya.
The Department of Immigration had on Tuesday issued application papers to Miguna to enable him start the process of enabling him regain his Kenyan citizenship as ordered by the courts, and to also facilitate his entry into the country after he refused to produce the Canadian passport he had used to travel back to Kenya.
But when the
application documents were delivered to him in the presence of the
Consular Officer of the Canadian High Commission to Kenya, Ms Fiona
Jarvis, Mr Miguna refused to fill in the relevant details and sign the
forms. Instead, he tore the official documents and was denied entry.
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