As the Kenyan was facing deportation, Daniel Kottut, the First Secretary, was reading old Newspapers at the Embassy, Jenifer Awuor, the “Assistant Ambassador”, was drinking Ketepa tea while Her Excellency, Purity Muhindi, was “On tour in Germany” on Tax payer’s money.
A Kenyan national who was stripped of his Swedish citizenship by t
he Swedish authorities escaped deportation that was scheduled for Thursday 19th June at 4.am through Arlanda International Airport.
A combination of pressure and personal resistance by the Kenyan worked to compel the Swedish authorities into stopping the deportation. The case touched on fundamental legal issues related to family re-union, issues which could not just be brushed aside if there was a serious attempt to alert the Swedish authorities about the major implications involved in the situation.
The Kenyan is a father of a 10 year old Swedish girl but when the decision to deport him was taken by the Swedish authorities, they ignored a legal provision in Swedish law that guarantees access by children to their parents as long as these parents are alive.
In the case of the Kenyan, the Swedish authorities were in the process of taking out a father of a young Swedish girl who had nothing to do with whatever wrongs the father had done. Growing without access to a living father within reach is deemed serious in Sweden and there is a Kenyan national who had to be transported to Sweden through the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi after he made a Swedish girl pregnant when the Swede was on holiday, sun bathing.
To underline the seriousness of the situation and using intelligence that was provided by the girl, the Kenyan was tracked down by the Swedish Embassy in Massai land, questioned about the Swedish lassie he had been kissing and made aware that he was a father because the Swede, who later spread her legs out for him under a powerful lust of “tasting a Masaai” actually got ballooned and produced a bouncing baby thereby converting the Kenyan into a father of a Swedish national.
The action that took place next is that the Kenyan’s travel documents were acquired and put in order, a ticket purchased by the Swedish government and the Kenyan put on a flight to Sweden, not just to join his girlfriend but also to begin taking his responsibility as a father of a Swedish citizen.
From this example, one can now imagine how the same government could support the idea of a father being taken away from Sweden simply because a silent decision had been taken by the Swedish authorities who believed that they would get away with the deportation.
The situation could have been different if the Kenyan has a history of mistreating the child or posing a danger to the security of the child because then, his fatherhood becomes a sense of insecurity rather than a guarantee of security. (Picture above: Daniel Kotut: “Reading old newspapers at the office“)
VIOLATIONS BY SWEDISH AUTHORITIES
There are fathers who are classified as people who can never take responsibility for their kids because of mental or other problems. If these parents are to be denied access to their children, then the State has the onus of demonstrating to the court that this is the situation. In the case of the Kenyan, the decision
was reportedly influenced by the police who acted when the Kenyan’s lawyer was on holiday. Consequently, the 21 day period of appeal elapsed without an appeal being lodged because the Kenyan’s lawyer was away. This anomaly raised the problem of lack of legal representation in the case during the period the lawyer was away while it raises suspicion as to why the Swedes decided to take such a serious decision when the reality was that the Kenyan’s lawyer was unavailable.
While trying to deport this Kenyan back home, another dilemma which could return to haunt the Swedish authorities is the question of who takes responsibility for the consequences of deporting the father of a Swedish national to Kenya. The Kenyan may have been a repeated offender. But this does not give the authorities the certificate to make hurried decisions to deport him for good. His citizenship had already been taken away and there is no big problem here because this is legal under Swedish law especially under specific circumstances.
Once the Kenyan sounded the alarm, what he needed was pressure on the Swedish authorities who also needed to be reminded that they were breaking International law together with UN conventions which guarantee the right to family re-union. Most importantly, the decision was a violation of European conventions which Sweden is a signatory to.
The Swedes must have known and understood the loop-holes in the case and this must have been the reason why they had wanted some communication from the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm to the effect that the government of Kenya might not be in a position to accept the Kenyan without problems. Although they were contacted on several occasions to intervene, our lame duck Embassy was too terrified to intervene.
The case is not yet over and the Kenyan is currently out of custody. The main battle may just have began. One perplexing gaffe of the Kenyan Embassy as the Lady Ambassador Purity Muhindi adopted a “no hands policy” towards the issue was the inability of the Mission to act even on the most basic aspect of the case that involves interpretation of the Kenyan law vis á vis the Swedish Law.
According to the current Kenyan Constitution, any Kenyan who takes up another citizenship automatically loses his/her Kenyan citizenship. This means that the Kenyan in question ceased being a Kenyan citizen the day he was handed over his Passport as a Swedish citizen.
What follows is that once the Swedes stripped the Kenyan of his Swedish citizenship, the Kenyan automatically became stateless because he was neither a Swedish citizen nor a Kenyan citizen. The Swedish authorities could not therefore deport him to Kenya because he had not re-applied for Kenyan citizenship and got accepted by the Kenyan authorities as a new citizenof the Republic. To get back his citizenship, the Kenyan needed to travel to Kenya and live there for five years and then apply for citizenship. (Picture above: Jenifer Awuor “Drinking Ketepa tea instead of defending Kenyans”)
THE ROLE KENYA EMBASSY COULD HAVE PLAYED
What the Kenyan Embassy could have done with the Swedish authorities was simply to state that under
Kenyan Constitution, the Kenyan government could, under no circumstance, allow the Kenyan to enter the country because he was a stateless person, given that his Swedish citizenship had been taken away while he was no longer considered a Kenyan after he became a Swede. According to International law, stateless persons can live in Kenya but only if they have a UN or other passport indicating their status. The Kenyan had no such status.
Instead of using the above argument to avert the deportation of the Kenyan, top Embassy officials like Daniel Kotut, First secretary, simply sat in his office reading old newspapers, Jenifer Awuor, the Principal Counselor aka Deputy Ambassador, was reportedly busy drinking Ketepa tea while Her Excellency Plenipotentiary Purity Muhindi aka “The Queen of Kenya Embassies”, was reportedly on a tour far away in Germany ON Tax payer’s money when she was supposed to be in the office defending Wakenya.
As the matter got hot with KSB on the neck of Embassy staff and calling on the Embassy to account, Kotut moved away from his phone to relieve stress because he did not know what to do. In a moment of panic that KSB was looking for a scandal, all calls were restricted to the Receptionist who was strictly advised to “take a message” on all calls touching on the Kenyan.
In the meantime, the Kenyan was facing deportation and the Swedes had with them a legal Kenyan Passport that they intended to use in the deportation of a person whom they had just rendered Stateless as per Kenyan Law.
In fact, the Swedes were in the middle of committing a serious criminal offence under Kenyan law for where did they get a legal Kenyan Passport attached to a Swedish citizen who had just lost his Swedish citizenship thereby becoming stateless? (Picture above: Ambassador Purity, “On tour in Germany on Tax Payer’s money”)
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE WAY FORWARD
The Swedish police appear not to have known the position of the Kenyan constitution in relation to the Kenyan after he was stripped of his citizenship and when they were told that the deportation would be a big scandal in the Kenyan media, they too began to develop cold feet, saying that they will have to check that out. The plan began to crumble as the prospect of deportation began to look bleak. The Kenyan is now out of custody.
KSB has intelligence that the Swedish police did not intend to travel with the Kenyan all the way to Kenya. They intended to return soon after transit in Holland because they pictured the huge basket of problems awaiting in Kenya. According to the Kenyan, the Swedes even tried to bribe him with 6000kr so that he wouldn’t become problematic on the way. But once the key issues were brought to the attention of the authorities and the Kenyan convinced to resist every effort to take him to the Aircraft, the whole operation collapsed.
Holding the Kenyan in custody to await a second attempt to deport him became untenable because within the framework of the Kenyan law, he is currently stateless and what he needs to do to fix the Swedes after his citizenship was taken away is to apply for asylum as a Stateless person. The case will still need some in-put because it is not yet over.
The good news is that the Kenyan may not be going anywhere. KSB is part of the “Strategy committee” and our agenda is to use everything within our means to ensure that the Kenyan stays. The Kenyan Embassy is under an obligation to cooperate and we will report every failure of the Embassy to do so.
Okoth Osewe
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