State told to provide consular services to renditioned Kenyans

The lawyer representing five Kenyans accused of carrying out the deadly killings in Uganda has called on the government to provide consular services to the detainees.

In a correspondence to the Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula, human rights lawyer Mbugua Mureithi said despite pledges from Kenya High Commission in Kampala that it will look after the welfare of the Kenyans, nothing has so far happened.

According to Mureithi, the Deputy Head of Mission J.K. Maikara and the Consular Ezekiel K. Serem had on August 12 promised to visit the four Kenyans in custody and also to implore on the Ugandan authorities to guarantee their wellbeing and safety in detention.

The five are Muhammad Hamid Suleiman, Hussein Hassan Agade, Idris Magondu, Muhammad Adan Abdow and Ismail Abubakar.

The lawyer also appealed for the minister's intervention to ensure that that the Kenyans were guaranteed a free trial. He expressed concern that the continued interrogations by Ugandan and Kenyan security operatives as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents were being done in a manner which contravened the rights of the detainees.

"As you well know from your distinguished career as an advocate, continued police interrogation after arraignment offends the basic adversarial nature of a criminal trial and such interrogations convert the trial into an inquisition and deprive the accused the right to remain silent and the right to adequate time and facilities to prepare their defence," he said.

The lawyer maintained that the five are innocent and were kidnapped from Kenya and forcibly rendered to Uganda by Kenyan authorities in blatant disregard and violation of extradition proceedings.

He said apart from Hussein Hassan Agade, who had been to Uganda for trade months before the bombing, the rest of the accused had never been to Uganda as it was claimed by Kenyan security officials.

"Our clients cannot comprehend why they are charged with commission of offences in Uganda at a time when they were all in Kenya," he said. Mureithi and a Ugandan lawyer will be representing the Kenyans during the trial.

The Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF) is coordinating the defence process.

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