Lawyer ‘deported over Kampala bomb probe’

A British lawyer on Tuesday spoke out about her deportation from Kenya, saying she was kicked out because the authorities feared she would embarrass the government.

Ms Clara Gutteridge, a human rights investigator, said she was looking into the illegal deportation and detention of terror suspects from Kenya to Uganda.

“I could speculate that it was my work looking into the Kampala bombing investigation that antagonised the Kenyan authorities,” she said.

Several Kenyans, including rights activist Al Amin Kimathi, are held in Uganda in connection with the July 11, 2010, bombing that killed 76 people.

Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang wrote to Ms Gutteridge on March 21, saying her presence in Kenya was not in national interest.

“I was working to expose gross human rights abuses by government personnel, and I think that is why I was deported,” Ms Gutteridge said in an interview from the UK.

“I was not given an explanation for my arrest. I was denied permission to call a family member or a lawyer, and I was left alone in a cell with no food or water for over 10 hours.”

Human rights abuses

British High Commission spokesman John Bradshaw confirmed the deportation on Monday and said they assisted her to get back to the United Kingdom.

Ms Gutteridge is a fellow of the Open Society Justice Initiative and was in Kenya at the invitation of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights to conduct research on national security and human rights abuses in East Africa.

She had visited Kenya four times since January, and at the time of her arrest she had arrived from Tanzania.

Ms Gutteridge was detained overnight and put on a flight the next day.