Wednesday February 7, 2018
Lawyer Miguna Miguna is pictured in Amsterdam following his deportation from Kenya on the night of February 6, 2018. /Courtesy
Lawyer Miguna Miguna has narrated his ordeal in police custody to the BBC, saying he was treated like a "beast".
The controversial lawyer said he was "abducted" from Runda by tens of heavily armed hooded men who claimed they were police officers and "treated like a beast".
"About 30 armed men detonated a device at my door last Friday and took me away from my family," he told BBC presenter James Coomarasamy at Amsterdam Airport on Wednesday.
"They kept me under incommunicado detention and moved me to at least five police stations. I had no access to my lawyers and the police openly threatened to deal with me."
Kiambu, Githunguri, Lari, Inland Container Depot, Kajiado and Airport police stations are among the locations where the National Resistance Movement 'general' was held.
Miguna said he did not take a bath or shower since the day of his arrest and that his request to see a doctor, as he developed symptoms of pneumonia, was not granted.
"I have been treated so badly... like a beast... I was not allowed to sleep... I was kept standing for over 24 hours and when i managed to sleep, I did so on a bare cement floor that was cold," he said.
But he added: "I am going to Canada which I know stands for the highest standards of human rights."
Miguna said he was deported after he refused to accept the charges mounted against him.
"They had charged me with being a member of NRM, which is apparently an outlawed group, and said that by administering the oath during the swearing-in, I aided Raila in committing a capital offence which is treason."
Miguna explained that he rejected the charges and did not plead with them as he couldn't see or speak to his lawyers.
He continued: "They wanted to take me to a cell on the Kenya-Tanzania border when the court declared that they had ignored five orders and thus they could not charge me with any criminal offence under the Kenyan jurisdiction.
"They had no option but to finally deport me on grounds that I was illegally in Kenya. But the law is clear - I was born in Kenya and thus they cannot purport to cancel my citizenship. The security agencies have generally thrown the constitution to the dogs and have no respect for the rule of law."
The lawyer has vowed to fight back amid efforts to reverse Interior cabinet secretary Fred Matiangi's deportation order. He told BBC that he had already instructed his lawyers to initiate applications and proceedings to nullify the deportation and reinstate his passport.
Wife and kids were frantic
In her interview with Canadian magazine, Maclean's Miguna's wife Jane said she was frantic with worry when police failed to take him to Milimani as the High Court ordered.
She said she kept calling the case manager at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi while trying to find her husband.
"From Sunday to yesterday [Tuesday], she [the official] was not even able to tell me if Miguna was dead or alive," Jane said in her interview.
"This really worried me because the commissioner was not even able to get information from the Kenyan government to assure me that they were holding Miguna and that he was alive."
Jane said Miguna had told their three children he would be returning home at the weekend.
"They were already asking 'why didn't daddy come'," she said, adding she kept telling them that he had an engagement.
The two have been married for 16 years and have been living in Richmond Hill, Canada.
Miguna was arrested at his Runda home in Nairobi last Friday night and kept in police custody for five days.
The lawyer was deported to Canada on Tuesday night for his role in the administration of Nasa leader Raila Odinga's oath. Miguna, a lawyer and self-declared NRM general, stamped the documents after Raila was declared the people's president.