Kenyan lawyer charged with treason
Miguna Miguna staged mock inauguration for defeated candidate Odinga
NAIROBI (Reuters) – A Kenyan opposition politician was charged with treason on Tuesday over the symbolic presidential “swearing in” of opposition leader Raila Odinga, reigniting street protests in which one person was killed.
Demonstrators took to the streets in the country’s west, the heartland of support for Odinga, who maintains he was the winner of an election that returned President Uhuru Kenyatta to power last year.
Two opposition lawmakers present at the “swearing in” a week ago were arrested and later released. So far, Odinga has not been arrested.
Campaigning lawyer Miguna Miguna was arrested on Friday in a dawn raid on his home. He was granted bail of 50,000 Kenyan shillings ($500) but has remained in police custody with his whereabouts unknown until he appeared in court in Kajiado County, neighboring Nairobi, on Tuesday to hear the charges.
He was charged with “being present and consenting to the administration of an oath to commit a capital offense, namely treason,” the charge sheet read.
Miguna refused to enter a plea, saying his case should be heard in a court in Nairobi, privately owned Citizen Television reported. In Nairobi, High Court Judge Luka Kimaru ordered that Miguna be released.
“I will not get out of this court until he is released,” he said, as onloookers shouted: “We want Miguna!”
Isaac Okero, president of the Law Society of Kenya, told reporters: “Once again the state is willfully violating Mr. Miguna’s rights by moving him without any notice to his lawyers or his family and, in order to frustrate their access to him, to a court stationed outside Nairobi.”
Odinga’s supporters protested against the charges, blocking roads and clashing with police in the western city of Kisumu, a Reuters witness said. Police used tear gas and fired warning shots to disperse them.
Witness Carlos Ouma said a county revenue collector was killed by a stray bullet when police fired into the air to disperse demonstrators in nearby Ahero, Miguna’s home town.
Odinga ran against Kenyatta in an election last August that was nullified by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds. Kenyatta won a repeat poll in October after Odinga boycotted it, saying it would not be fair.