After spending nearly four years in forced exile, senior Kenyan lawyer Dr. Miguna Miguna is set to return home with the support of newly sworn-in Kenyan president William Ruto.
According to the tweet he made on 20th September at 8:10 pm, Mguna Miguna posted a photo of Kenyan passport and assured the Kenyans how his journey for returning home had began and just waiting for the lifting of red alerts barring him from boarding planes to Kenya.
“1687 days after (former president) Uhuru Kenyatta, (former Prime Minister) Raila Odinga, (Interior Cabinet Secretary) Fred Matiang’i, (Interior Principal Secretary) Karanja Kibicho and (former Directorate of Immigration boss) George Kihalangwa conspired illegally seize and destroyed my Kenyan passport. President William Ruto has had a new one delivered to me. Waiting for the lifting of red alerts!” says Miguna Miguna in a tweet.
Dr Miguna on 7th February 2018 was deported to Canada by the government of Kenya after him conducting a swearing-in of opposition chief Raila Odinga as the people’s president in January 2018 something which led him be charged with treason related in Kenya.
With several court orders giving Miguna rights to return to his motherland, the state has always found excuses to keep him in exile. Among the excuses, the state has always argued that Miguna obtained a dual citizenship ” Kenyan and Canadian citizenship” at a time when the Kenyan constitution did not support it. However this doesn’t remove his being a Kenyan by birth.
The oppressed Miguna said he was physically assaulted, tortured and forcibly drugged with an intravenous sedative before he was put on the plane back to Dubai with an injury on his hand that he said was as a result of the injection of the sedative.
On 28 March 2018 in a Facebook post he made, Miguna said “I was dragged, assaulted, drugged and forcefully flown to Dubai” and “I’m sick. My ribs and body is hurting all over. This is a travesty of justice.”
This forced Human Rights Watch on 28 March 2018 through Otsieno Namwaya issue a statement calling for Miguna’s release. “Kenyan authorities should urgently obey the numerous court orders to either release or produce Miguna in court. Holding him at the airport without any form of judicial review, in violation of court orders, is a blatant example of arbitrary detention.”
Miguna’s “assault and torture” on 29 March forced Irungu Houghton, the executive director of Amnesty International for Kenya to release a statement calling for authorities to allow Miguna enter the country to participate in judicial proceedings, saying “The way Miguna was treated showed blatant disregard for his human rights, after the High Court ordered that he should be allowed to re-enter the country.
The High court of Kenya on 14 December 2018 made judgment in which it strongly indicted the state for having grossly violated Miguna’s constitutional and fundamental rights such as his right to citizenship by birth which it ruled he did not lose and the state could not terminate. The Court also held that Miguna was a citizen entitled to a Kenyan Passport and ordered the State to issue him with a new and valid passport. The Court held that the destruction of Miguna’s house, his arrest, incommunicado detention and forceful removal from Kenya were illegal and inhumane; that they constituted physical, emotional and psychological torture. Justice Enoch Chacha Mwita awarded Dr Miguna Miguna Sh7 million as damages for the violation of his rights during his rights and Kshs. 270,000 as special damages for the destruction of his house in Runda by the state. The court ordered the state officers who had been sued to pay the damages personally.
In December 2019, Miguna Miguna through his Twitter account informed the public as he was going to make his third attempt to return to Kenya, Citing protection from a court order issued in December 2018 to allow his return, he stated that his flight would land in Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on the morning of 11 January 2020. However, his return stopped when both Lufthansa and Air France airlines denied him admission to their flights citing red alerts that had been issued by the Kenyan government over his intended trip.
On 6 January 2020, Kenyan high court Judge Justice Weldon Korir ordered the government to facilitate the entry of Dr Miguna back to the country, and that the registrar should release Miguna’s Kenyan passport which was currently under custody.
An order be and is hereby issued, that pending and following the inter-parties hearing of the Application, compelling the Respondents to facilitate entry of the Petitioner into Kenya on January 7, 2020 or any other date appointed by the Petitioner on the basis of his identification through the use of his National Identity Card, or his Kenya Passport in the form and state it was delivered by the Respondents to the High Court Registry pursuant to this Court’s Order
Kenyan Justice John Mativo summoned the Kenyan Attorney General Mr Paul Kihara Kariuki to appear in court on 13 January 2020, to explain why orders allowing lawyer Miguna Miguna’s return to Kenya had not been obeyed. The Attorney General did not appear in court and instead sent a team of lawyers to appear in court on his behalf, prompting protest from Miguna Miguna’s lawyers, who said that the state was treating the matter casually.
Dr Miguna who had flown out of the country to seek asylum during the days of the late President Daniel Arap Moi, the current Kenya constitution that was changed in 2010 grant him rights to have a dual citizenship in any country he wants same to all Kenyan citizens. And from this President William Ruto’ s government has given Miguna a new Kenyan passport to return home freely with no cases imposed on him.
