The High Court has granted former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i anticipatory bail barring police from arresting and detaining him.
Justice Kanyi Kimondo granted the orders after Dr. Matiang’i moved to court on Thursday morning claiming that he is under imminent threat of arrest by the police and is justifiably apprehensive that his constitutional rights are being violated.
In granting the orders, the court said that the police are at liberty to investigate Matiang’i on any criminal conduct but will not arrest him following the anticipatory bail.
In documents filed in court, Matiang’i, through his lawyers, claimed that he received credible information from officers of the Kenya Police that they are under express instructions to arbitrarily capture and arrest him with a view of arraigning him in court for ulterior political motives.
“The powers of arrest by the respondents and the Kenya Police are being abused and misused to harass, intimidate and oppress the applicant and his former cabinet colleagues and the former president; and to achieve extraneous political purposes unconnected with upholding the Law,” he submitted.
Matiang’i thus urged the court to issue a conservatory order restraining the respondents, their servants, agents, junior officers and/ or anybody from effecting and/or anybody from arresting, charging, harassing or otherwise however interfering with him.
He claims that on February 9, 2023, his home was raided, surrounded and cordoned off by police officers who were seeking to arrest him.
According to Matiang’i the police officers only retreated after the media and his lawyers arrived.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Prof. Kithure Kindiki has since come out to state that no police officers were sent to Matiang’i’s home as claimed.
“Dr. Matiangi’s lawyers and some politicians who spoke from the scene alleged that the said persons were police officers sent to arrest the former Cabinet Secretary. This allegation is utterly FALSE,” said Kindiki in a statement.
He added: “No police officer(s) or any security agent from any Government institution or department was dispatched to the home of Dr. Matiang’i to arrest, harass or otherwise interfere with his Constitutional rights in any manner whatsoever.”
