Matiangi accuses Miguna lawyers of lying about court orders

Interior CS Fred Matiang’i has refuted claims from Miguna Miguna’s lawyers that they had served him with court orders.

Appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, the CS said his office as well as that of the Inspector General and the Immigration Department had been condemned on the basis of lies fed to the court.

“Miguna’s lawyers went and lied to the court that his passport was confiscated and he was detained, both of which were not true,” Matang’i told the committee. on Tuesday morning.

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He further accused Miguna of refusing to present his passport for stamping when he arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Wednesday last week.

According to the CS, following Miguna’s refusal to present his passport, the State organised for Visa application forms to be taken to to him at the airport but “he tore them, shredded them to pieces and refused to fill them out.”

Dr. Matiang’i told the committee that he even reached out to Foreign Affairs CS Amina Mohamed who convinced the Canadian High Commissioner to intervene, but their efforts hit a brick wall because Miguna refused to hand over his passport to them.

“The Canadian High Commissioner sent consular officers to the airport to meet Miguna and they spent 3 hours persuading him either to give his passport to be stamped or they could try to find a way of facilitating him, in a diplomatic manner, to get out of the airport. He refused,” he said.

Matiang’i added that Miguna’s lawyers then went and secured a court order by peddling lies to the court, adding that he was, however, not served as he was at the GSU pass out parade at the time.

“We didn’t know that an order for us to appear in court had been made as we were at the GSU pass-out parade. It’s a spartan straight ceremony that follows a tradition, you can’t interrupt it in the middle, we don’t even carry cellphones to that function. We cannot be contemptuous of an order that we have not been served,” said Matiang’i.

He added that they, therefore, did not deport Miguna as reported by media outlets. Matiang’i claimed that since Miguna had not been cleared at the airport, he was not within their jurisdiction hence they could not deport him.

“Our Immigration department did not have an option but to remove him as an undocumented, un-established passenger on transit to his last port of call. Miguna was not deported, because if he was deported I would have had to sign a deportation order. We couldn’t deport him because he was not in Kenya. He had not been cleared, so he was not in our custody, he was not within our jurisdiction, we did not deport him,” Dr. Matiang’i maintained.