A Kenyan opposition politician has alleged he was beaten, held down and injected “with noxious substances” by officials before being deported unconscious from Nairobi airport to Dubai on Thursday.

Miguna Miguna said he had attempted to enter Kenya on Monday but was detained in an airport toilet for more than a day before being assaulted by more than 50 “thugs”, led by a police officer who ignored a court order for his release. In a Facebook post he said he woke up many hours later on a plane at Dubai airport.

Kenya has been hit by prolonged political turmoil that has slowed growth and threatens to tip the emerging east African economy into chaos.

In November, Uhuru Kenyatta won another five-year term as president in an election rerun triggered when the supreme court annulled the result of an August election because of irregularities.

Kenyatta won the rerun with 98% of the vote, but turnout was only 39% after the opposition boycotted the poll, saying it was neither free nor fair.

Around 100 people have been killed in political violence, mainly in clashes between opposition supporters and security forces.

Recent months have seen intensifying confrontations between authorities and the judiciary.

Miguna was arrested in February after participating in a mock swearing-in ceremony for the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, which was attended by thousands of people.

Government lawyers called the ceremony an act of treason. Miguna was deported shortly afterwards, despite court orders for his release. He has continued his defiance from abroad.

His new attempt to enter Kenya came just two weeks after a surprise meeting between Odinga and Kenyatta, who announced a new initiative to heal increasingly bitter divisions in the country.

Officials have said Miguna is not a Kenyan citizen after failing to correctly complete paperwork when he became a Canadian citizen some years ago.

The deportation followed a bizarre sequence of events at Nairobi’s international airport, during which Miguna posted from what he called the “Toilet at Terminal 2” saying he had been detained in the “filthy” facilities.

On Thursday a high court judge fined Kenya’s interior minister, national police chief and permanent secretary for immigration after finding them in contempt of court for defying an order to release Miguna.

After his first deportation last month, a court later ordered that Miguna’s Kenyan passport be restored and that he be allowed to return.

However, when Miguna arrived on Monday at Jomo Kenyatta international airport, plainclothes officers tried to hustle him on to an outbound plane, witnesses said. That failed when he protested.

On Thursday he called for international support.

He wrote that he was refusing to leave the international section of Dubai airport and insisted he must return to Kenya.

“I will and must return to Kenya as a Kenyan citizen by birth as various courts have ordered,” he said.

“I woke up here in Dubai and I have nothing. I need the international community and everyone on this case … I’m not going to agree to board anything, because this is against my will. I’m sick I can’t even walk,” Miguna was quoted as saying by The Nation, a Kenyan newspaper.



There was no immediate response from Kenyan authorities to Miguna’s claims, though Kenya’s immigration department retweeted a post calling on the public to ignore a rumour that Miguna had been sedated or drugged.