Outcry as Miguna is deported despite court order to release him

Miguna Miguna

There has been an outcry after lawyer Miguna Miguna was on Tuesday night deported from Kenya to Canada.

Government officials claim Miguna was deported because he had denounced Kenyan citizenship.

Ministry of Interior spokesman Mwenda Njoka said Miguna renounced his Kenyan citizenship years back, acquired Canadian citizenship and never bothered to reclaim Kenyan citizenship in the legally prescribed manner, neither did he disclose that he had another country’s citizenship despite being a lawyer who should have known better.

It is not clear what law the government used to eject him from Kenya as the Constitution guarantees him citizenship since he is Kenyan by birth.

The official government newsroom- NEXUS- said on Twitter, ‘‘Miguna is headed home. The court ordered he gets released and the interior ministry obeyed the orders and even assisted him with a flight ticket home”.

Miguna was driven from Kajiado Law Courts and held at the ICD police deport in Industrial Area before he was taken to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and placed onto a KLM flight departing Nairobi for Amsterdam at midnight.

One of his lawyers Nelson Havi said Miguna is a Kenyan and it is not clear why government was deporting him.

 “We are reliably informed that Miguna Miguna has been forced into a KLM flight for “deportation” to Canada. Now, how do you deport a Kenyan? This Country has been overrun by criminals,” Havi said Tuesday night.

It is notable that Miguna ran for governorship seat for Nairobi County in the concluded 2017 elections. He must have produced documents to show he is a Kenyan.

But according to the government, Miguna ‘renewed his Canadian passport on 16th June 2017’.

Lawyer Donald Kipkorir protested the deportation saying the move had violated the constitution

“Under Article 16 of the Constitution, a Kenyan by birth even if dual Citizen, can never lose his citizenship... Under Article 17, a foreigner who acquired Kenyan citizenship can lose it ... Miguna’s deportation violates our Constitution.”

Another government official had explained Miguna did not regain his citizenship when he came back from Canada.

Miguna was supposed to be produced before court Wednesday after High Court Judge Luka Kimaru barred the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Inspector General (IG) of the police from preferring any criminal charges against him.

The judge had earlier ruled the police bosses were guilty of disobeying court orders regarding his release.

While the court in Kajiado ordered that he be presented before Justice Kimaru's court at Milimani, Miguna was not produced in the court and his lawyers stayed late within the court's premises waiting for his release.

He was arraigned in a court in Kajiado on Tuesday but did not plead to charges preferred against him.

Justice Kimaru had directed that police present him before court Wednesday at 11am.

The Kajiado magistrate Mulochi had ruled that Mr Miguna be taken before Judge Kimaru in the High Court in Nairobi before 3pm Tuesday for orders on his bail terms.

He further directed that Miguna appears before him on February 14 to take a plea.