Obey law before deporting suspects, envoy pleads

Kenyan authorities have been asked to follow international practice while deporting five Taiwanese, who were arrested along Chinese nationals in a case of telecommunications fraud in Nairobi.

A Taiwanese official John Chen said the five suspects currently held in Kenya are likely to be sentenced on June 6 and may be slapped with a deportation order like the one issued in April that saw their countrymen lumped in an aircraft to China despite a court order.

“We recall that in April, despite a Kenyan court order requesting the police to return the Taiwanese nationals to their country, and regardless of numerous attempts and pleas to stop the illegal deportation, two groups of Taiwanese were forcibly deported from Kenya to China on April 8,” the official said at a press briefing in Nairobi on Friday.

“We regard this as an extra-legal deportation to China,” Mr Chen, an official in Taiwan’s liaison office in South Africa said.

He noted two critical legal issues were lost in the event, first that a court order that require the police to return the Taiwanese was ignored and that “under international human rights law, governments have an obligation not to deport individuals without first giving them an opportunity to contest their removal before a competent authority.”

“We request that upon completion of the judicial procedures, the will and opinion of the Taiwanese be duly respected as regards the destination of their choice,” the official added.