Another 10 illegal foreigners deported

By CYRUS OMBATI

Kenya: Ten more foreigners who have been in the country illegally were Wednesday deported to their countries.

This brings to more than 20 the number of aliens sent back to their home countries since Monday.

Sources said the President had sanctioned the process after it emerged most of them were involved in ‘dirty businesses’, including drug trafficking and child molestation.

Those arrested on Tuesday night were from Sierra Leon, Nigeria, Ghana and Congo.

Yesterday, lawyer Cliff Ombeta said the suspects were rounded up from their houses in Nairobi and detained at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) ahead of their deportation.

“I am headed to the airport to see the ten foreigners being detained there before being deported,” said Ombeta.

He complained the suspects’ deportation was not procedural, adding some of them had pending criminal cases in court.

But a senior Government official said the process was in order and Attorney General Githu Muigai had approved it. “The minister is legally mandated to order deportation of such people and he had done that,” said the official.

Controversial Nigerian businessman Anthony Chinedu was deported from Kenya on Monday.

Ombeta claimed a Kenyan chartered flight that delivered him to Lagos had been detained there for unclear reasons with eight police officers and immigration officials on board. We could not verify the claims but Chinedu, who called Nairobi, said he was free in Lagos but the plane was detained for flouting rules there.