By Willis Oketch?
Mombasa, Kenya: The High Court in Mombasa has stopped German police officers from extraditing a suspected fugitive in Kenya to go and face fraud related charges in Germany.
For five months German detectives acting from Germany’s embassy in Nairobi have been trying to convince their compatriot to return home voluntarily to face the charges but he has refused, forcing the two officers to resort to threats, according to the fugitive’s affidavit filed in court on Thursday.
Siever Udo, who is believed to have been hiding at Diani in the South Coast, is wanted in Germany following a warrant of arrest, which was issued against him by a court there. Justice Maureen Odero in Mombasa issued the order stopping his arrest on Thursday following an application by his lawyer Gikandi Ngibuini. ?
Mr Ngibuini said his client, as a resident in Kenya, was entitled to fundamental rights set out in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of Kenya.
The lawyer complained the officers in question had not even showed his client a warrant of arrest they want to use in extraditing him. He said even Kenya Police have not approached his client over the matter.
“The (German) officers have not even showed my client the warrant of arrest and they have not been approached by the authority in Kenya regarding the issue,” said Ngibuini. ?
Ngibuini protested that the two officers have threatened to arrest and repatriate Udo several times using an international warrant of arrest they had from a German Court.
According to the lawyer, the officers have threatened to use Kenyan policemen to take away his client. He also told the judge that the German officers have not produced any identification that they are indeed agents of the Federal Republic of Germany. ?
He said before threatening to arrest his client, they approached him at Shakatak Night Club on December 22, last year and claimed to possess a warrant for his arrest and extradition to Germany. ?
Fraud charges
Ngibuini said after the meeting at the club one of the police officers from Bundeskriimnalamt, a police department from the Federal Republic of Germany called him on phone and told him he should go back to Germany and face the charges or be repatriated. ?
He said his client was apprehensive the officers in question could turn out to be criminals who would eliminate him after his arrest.
Ngibuini told the court that since Germany was not a member of the British Commonwealth the Director of Public Prosecutions must initiate any such extradition orders.
The applicant who resides in Diani on the Kenyan South Coast on a tourist visa went to court last year to stop extradition claiming his fundamental rights had been violated.
