Miguna Miguna Narrates his Five-Day Harrowing Experience at the Hands of Kenya Police

Former Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant Miguna Miguna, who was deported from Kenya to Canada on Tuesday, has recounted his five-day harrowing experience in the hands of Kenya police.

Speaking during an interview with BBC’s Jamie Coomarasamy in Amsterdam, Netherlands enroute to Canada, the lawyer narrated how he was arrested and the agony he suffered while in police cells.

“They did not say why they were arresting me and where they were taking me. I was then kept in unlawful incommunicado detention for five days under the most horrendous, cruel and inhumane conditions imaginable,” he noted.

On the conditions he was placed under while in detention, he said: “I have been treated like a beast. I was only given food twice and I was not allowed to sleep. I was kept standing and when I was able to sleep I slept on cold bare floor without anything. I was not able to take a shower since last Friday, my feet are swollen, there was a time I was getting an attack I demanded to see a doctor they refused. I have been tortured.”

He further recounts how he was transferred to different police stations before he was finally arraigned at Kajiado Court on Tuesday, where the magistrate directed he be taken before a Nairobi court.

He was then driven to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where he was put on a flight to Canada. “They took me to the runway at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, kept me there for more than five hours… the constitution is very clear, you cannot cancel the citizenship of a person who gained his citizenship by birth,” Miguna told BBC.

Miguna vowed to mount legal proceedings to challenge government’s decision to deport him from his country of birth.

“I am going to fight this legally and constitutionally. I have instructed lawyers to initiate applications and proceedings to invalidate and nullify what Fred Matiangi purported in terms of deportation to reinstate my passport which they took illegally and to return to Kenya,” he said.

Appearing before Kajiado court on Tuesday morning, where he was charged, but refused to take plea, the self-proclaimed National Resistance Movement (NRM) general recounted how police arrived at his home in Runda to arrest him.

“They used explosives to break into my house, which is against the law. They did not even identify themselves. Had they done so, I would have opened the door for them. The officers looked rough and were not dressed in uniform.”

“Some of them were bearded while others had dreadlocks. In fact, thought they were Mungiki. They did not even tell me I was under arrest, they just led me away with guns,” said Miguna.

He continued: “The Lari Police Station is an Industrial Area inland depot, the most humane of all police stations I was in since my arrest. It was only yesterday (Monday,) that I was given a toothbrush and water.”