Where are they? Families ask courts to help find abducted relatives

For eight years, the family of Hemed Salim Hemed has been hoping that their relative would resurface someday.

Mr Hemed disappeared on February 2, 2014 when police raided Masjid Musa to arrest a congregation of Muslim youth that they claimed were receiving Jihadist teachings.

Though they asked a court to compel police to produce Mr Hemed, they are still in the dark on his whereabouts.

In a habeas corpus case filed by the family demanding the police present him in court dead or alive after presenting evidence of his arrest, the police claimed he and others escaped from the police vehicle while being transported to the police station.

The family must now live with the possibility that they will never find out what happened to Mr Hemed and whether he is alive or dead.

Another family seeking justice is that of Mohammed Avukame.

The Nation established that Mr Avukame was arrested on August 23, 2017 outside the legal aid offices of human-rights pressure group Muhuri, adjacent to the Mombasa courthouse.

He was held in police custody for 10 months but he was not charged with any offence or allowed to see or talk to his relatives, his family said.

The family claimed Mr Avukame was abducted by men in a black Toyota Prado. They filed a habeas corpus case asking the government to explain his disappearance.

Mr Avukame is still missing.

The others are Yasir Mahmoud Ahmed, who was abducted by people believed to be security agents in Mkunumbi, on the Lamu-Witu-Garsen road, on June 19, 2021. His family’s habeas corpus application was filed at the Malindi High Court.

Another missing person is Bakari Mbwana Mwanyota, who was abducted on February 23, 2021 from his home in Likoni, Mombasa, by people suspected to be security agents.

His wife said two foreign men were involved in his abduction.

A shadow report written by 21 national and international civil society organisations will be considered by the United Nations Committee Against Torture at its 73rd Periodic Review Session to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from April 19 to May 13, 2022.

It recommends that the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit be overseen scrupulously by relevant authorities and its officers investigated and prosecuted when they are reported to commit extrajudicial killings or enforced disappearances.

“The Anti-Terrorism Police Unit remains a law unto itself and it does not abide by legal requirements, including oversight by authorised bodies,” the report says.

“Human Rights Watch documented at least 10 cases of killings, 10 cases of enforced disappearances, and 11 cases of mistreatment or harassment of terrorism suspects in which there is strong evidence of the counterterrorism unit’s involvement mainly in Nairobi.”

Recently the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) proposed new guidelines for prosecutors, financial agencies and the prosecution of terrorists and terror financiers.

The DPP Noordin Hajj wants to be notified before the ATPU makes any arrests of terror suspects.

Even as the ODPP and Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) are yet to agree on the procedures to be applied before terror suspects are arrested, the families whose relatives were abducted after courts acquitted them are seeking answers.

Among them are the families of Elgiva Bwire, Amani Mwafujo, Shafi Noor, Liban Omar, Abdi Farah, and Nassir Skanda.

Mr Bwire was convicted 11 years ago after pleading guilty to terrorism charges. But on Thursday, October 28, 2021, he got a chance to walk out of the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison as a free man, only to go missing a short time later and never to be seen again.

His lawyer reported the matter to the Central Police Station in Nairobi when he received information about his disappearance and in the evening he also went missing. He resurfaced 10 days later in Mwingi.

Mr Mwafujo disappeared in a similar way.

He was cleared of terrorism charges by a Kwale Court and disappeared on the morning of March 21 this year, when he was released from Shimo La Tewa Maximum Security Prison, where he had been remanded for six years.

“We had no idea that the celebration would be short-lived. We have been following up on his release for the past one week. My niece was to pick him up on the same day the court order for his release was given. But she was told to come on Friday, which was pushed to Monday,” said his sister Ms Ramla Mohammed.

Mr Mwafujo’s abduction happened in broad daylight, when he and his sister boarded a matatu from Shanzu in Mombasa to Likoni to see their mother.

“We were sitting in the third row behind the conductor, and my brother was between me and another passenger. Six men ordered me out of the PSV and grabbed Mr Mwafujo and forced him into one of the two vehicles, which sped off. The men threw me out and took my brother. They were in civilian clothes and their faces were not covered,” said Ms Mohammed.

Mr Omar was cleared of terrorism charges over the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack.

His case was not different from Mr Mwafujo’s and Mr Bwire’s. The Somali refugee had just left the offices of the anti-terror police in Nairobi.

“He had been released from Kamiti Maximum Prison and was going through clearance at the anti-terror police offices, which is the procedure with terror suspects,” said the then Muhuri director Sheikh Khelef Khalifa, noting that masked armed gunmen dressed in black intercepted a taxi carrying Mr Omar.

In Mr Skanda’s case, he was acquitted of terror-related charges in December 2017 after four years in police custody.

He was abducted on his way to afternoon prayers in a Nyali mosque by people who identified themselves as police officers.

The families of the victims say they hope to see their relatives alive or dead as their court petitions, protests and media alerts have not produced the desired results and the government has not responded to their inquiries.

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