Lawyer Shadrack Wambui alleges plot to arrest him over June 25 protests, seeks anticipatory bail
Lawyer Shadrack Wambui says unless the high court intervenes and grants the orders, he stands to suffer unlawful deprivation of liberty, irreparable harm to his person, grave public embarrassment and monumental injustice occasioned through misuse of public office for private ends.
Lawyer Shadrack Wambui is seeking anticipatory bail at the high court to prevent the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) from arresting and locking him up over the weekend, awaiting charges of plotting the Wednesday, June 25, protests.
Wambui says unless the high court intervenes and grants the orders, he stands to suffer unlawful deprivation of liberty, irreparable harm to his person, grave public embarrassment and monumental injustice occasioned through misuse of public office for private ends.
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The lawyer had received a summons from the DCI Rongai offices to appear before them on Friday, 27, for questioning in connection with the events of the demonstrations, and the lawyer says he is aware of plans to detain him immediately thereafter.
But Wambui says the development bears hallmarks of political persecution.
"I harbour reasonable, well-founded apprehension that the real intend of these summons is not to conduct a bona fide inquiry by to engineer my arrest under the guise of a lawful process, particularly on a Friday, synonymous with the infamous "kamata kamata Fridays" where dissenters were historically rounded up and held incommunicado over weekends as punishment for political defiance," states the lawyer.
"While I am committed to the rule of law and am prepared to subject myself to due process as an officer of the court, I firmly believe this is a case of blatant abuse of state machinery for purposes of political intimidation and personal vendetta."
Wambui says that on diverse dates this month, he had organised like-minded citizens to exercise their constitutional rights to assemble, demonstrate and present their grievances to public authorities in accordance with Article 37 of the constitution and had dutifully notified the police of the same.
The lawyer says he had similarly notified police of the intention to hold a peaceful demonstration on Wednesday.
Wambui says that the demonstration started and went on peacefully, with demonstrators comprising peaceful and unarmed individuals, exercising their constitutional freedoms.
"However, midway through the exercise, a gang of rowdy, violent, and well-coordinated goons infiltrated the protests, turning it into a scene of calculated chaos," states Wambui in his affidavits filed at the high court in Nairobi in an application through lawyer Danstan Omari.
According to the lawyer, an MP in Kajiado had taken to social media to allege that the financiers of the protests hailed from Mathare, "a thinly veiled reference to myself as I am publicly associated with Mathare – my birthplace and by my sustained advocacy for its residents".
Wambui says the DCI is taking the action on the instruction of the MP, who has allegedly ordered them to take immediate and punitive action against the lawyer.
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