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Lawyer sues Uganda, Kenya for illegal arrest
Mbugua Mureithi filed a suit accusing the two governments of violating his fundamental human rights.
A Kenyan lawyer who was illegally detained by Ugandan police in September has moved to the East African Court of Justice with a suit seeking compensation from the Ugandan and Kenyan governments for violating his fundamental human rights.
In his suit which was filed on Wednesday, Mbugua Mureithi seeks several declarations of non-compliance by Uganda and Kenya with their obligations regarding observance of human rights, rule of law and free movement of persons under the East African Community Treaty and the protocol on the establishment of the EAC Common Market.
The lawyer, who was arrested on September 15, is also seeking declarations of violations of a number of his fundamental human rights and reparations in damages.
Mureithi was arrested together with Kenyan human rights defender al-Amin Kimathi, moments after arriving in the country to attend the trial of seven Kenyans who had been renditioned to Uganda from Kenya during investigations into the twin bombings of Kampala last July.
Kimathi, the chairman of the Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF), was later charged alongside the detained Kenyans with the offences of terrorism and murder and spent one year at Luzira Maximum Security Prison before the charges were dropped.
Illegalities
Mureithi, who had been retained by the MHRF to represent the Kenyans, was deported after four days in custody. The Ugandan government denied the two lawyers permission to act for the suspects, saying they were not licensed to operate as lawyers in the country.
The investigators later claimed the lawyers were found to be part of the plot to cause mass casualties in Kampala because their phone conversations revealed they had helped the suspects in renting out apartments used by the plotters of the attacks.
A day after his release in September, the lawyer accused the Ugandan authorities of a “witch-hunt” .
Although Mureithi was released after a few days, Kimathi spent several months in detention and was released in 2011 after the state dropped the charges against him.
