They arrested me for nothing, now my life’s in disarray: Trader

Mr Abdulrazak Haji was having an afternoon saunter at a shopping mall in Nyali, Mombasa County just two days to the end of the year.

As he went about his business, he noticed two people were closely watching him as he moved from one building to another, window shopping.

And, as he was about to enter a coffee shop, the two, who later on identified themselves as police officers, finally approached him and demanded to conduct a body search.

“They said they were from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) and had been sent to arrest me. They did not, however, show their identity cards,” he says.

GUN

“… They took my firearm and asked if I had a licence. I replied in the affirmative and they promptly asked for its certificate …” he said.

Mr Haji explained that the certificate had been safely kept at home. The officers demanded to see it. He obliged. Once at his residence, he handed the officers the document, while explaining to them that he was a licensed gun owner for 30 years.

“They then started ransacking my house, turning it upside down, while saying they were searching for anything suspicious ... I had hoped they will leave afterwards. I was wrong,” he said.

They had other plans.

“They told me I would be accompanying them to Nairobi despite the fact that it was night … I requested them to allow me to pick up my medicines,” he says.

“They ordered me to drive with them to the capital. I demanded to know why I was being arrested. ‘We are following instructions from Nairobi’, they said,” he added.

TERRORISM

Mr Haji drove between the gruff men as their vehicle sped towards Nairobi in a trip during which he wondered if, indeed, those were officers. What would happen if they killed him, what they had found on him and so many other questions.

“I had heard stories of suspects of terrorism being gunned down and their bodies thrown into the wilderness, stories of people being kidnapped by fake officers, and many other scary ordeals. All these scared me,” Mr Haji says.

They arrived in Nairobi at dawn and he was directed, later on, to the Milimani Law Courts.

“To my surprise, the officers asked the court to grant them a five-day custodial order, so that they could conduct further investigations before they can charge me,” Mr Haji said.

It later on emerged he had been arrested for “abetting terror activities by recruiting and radicalising youth in Mombasa.”

The information in the affidavit was that Haji was being used by Al-Shabaab to spy on Kenyan security agencies in preparation for terrorist attacks during New Year festivities.

“I was shocked. Terrified. The court allowed the police to detain me for five days,” he says, adding that he was taken to the ATPU headquarters, as the court said the crime he “committed” was a matter of national security.

CRIMES

Mr Haji was later released unconditionally on December 29 without charge, after the prosecution found nothing linking him to the crimes he was arrested for.

Mr Haji’s case is not unique. Several others have undergone similar ordeals in the hands of police officers.

Mid last year, Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officers arrested a Moi University student, Salad Tari Gufu, 25, moments after he had presented himself to Huruma police station.

He had gone to the station to clear his name after, together with five others, they were accused of engaging in terror-related activities.

Police, who described them as recruiters and facilitators of a terror network, had placed a Sh2 million bounty on their head – according to a statement released on Wednesday, July, 19.

Ten days after he was arrested, Senior Resident Magistrate Hellen Onkwani ordered Mr Salad’s release, saying “the respondent was not supposed to be arrested.”

A quick search for his name on the internet returns nothing but police had published posters placing a Sh2 million bounty on his head, a situation he says, has cost him his reputation.

Police, especially those from the ATPU, have on several occasions been accused of arresting innocent civilians without verifying information given by informers.

And the head of ATPU, Munga Nyale, maintains the risk of not arresting one terror suspect and ignoring information from either known or anonymous informers could be devastating to the country.

SUSPECTS

“The security of the State comes first and we are not relenting. We will continue arresting suspects. If they are found to be innocent, we will release them. There is no compromise when it comes to matters of terrorism,” Mr Nyale maintained.

Article 49 of the Constitution under the Bill of Rights stipulates that an arrested person should be informed promptly, in a language that the person understands, why he is being arrested, the right to remain silent and the consequences of not remaining silent.

The arrested person is also allowed to communicate with an advocate, and other persons whose assistance is necessary.

But most of those who have been arrested told the Daily Nation that their phones were immediately confiscated and they were not allowed to even inform members of their families of their whereabouts.

The arrests are sometimes found to have resulted from information by business rivals and cases of mistaken identity.

They, in turn, result in loss of business, broken relationships, being thrown out by landlords, depression and difficulty securing jobs.

RENT

People like photographer Msingi Sasis, who was once arrested at the Galleria shopping mall while taking pictures, admitted that after the arrest, he was alienated from his circles.

“I lost almost all my clients because people feared doing business with me. People even stopped calling me for fear of being followed by police and linked with terrorism.”

The photographer, commonly known as “Brekko”, added that the loss of clients resulted in him not paying rent, both for the house and the studio.

Soon, auctioneers raided his studio and seized his computers, cameras, stands, printers and other equipment.

For Mr Haji, the damage of his arrest was majorly on his business and his emotions, as his close associates avoided him.

“I have lost clients and the incident continues to disturb me because I still do not know why they arrested me and who sent them. I live in fear every day. It is just devastating,” Mr Haji says.

Salad says, on his part, that the police posters available on all search engines frustrate him because as long as they are available, employers may not give him a job.

“It will be hard to travel abroad or even do business. Since I was arrested, I cannot remember the number of times I have had to explain to people that the court released me. I have to walk around with the court documents because people remember the arrest but somehow, my vindication escaped them. It is terrible. So depressing. I just hate it,” Mr Salad said.