A magistrate has spared two cabinet secretaries (CSs) the pain of paying $90,000 (Sh9,171,900) to eight Pakistan belly dancers for their irregular deportation and in defiance of a court order.
Milimani Law Courts senior principal magistrate Mr Kennedy Cheruiyot ruled that he won’t order Mr Rashid Echesa Mohammed (Sports, Culture and Gender) and Dr Fred Matiang’I (Interior) to personally compensate the eight deportees.
However, he fingered the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for breaching anorder that directed the eight be presented before court yesterday.
He directed two detectives, Samuel Ngunjiri and Julius Kiprotich, who were investigating the offences of human trafficking to appear before him on Friday to explain why they handed over the girls to another state department for deportation contrary to his orders. “The DCI flouted orders of this court and he must be held accountable,” Mr Cheruiyot ruled. The dancers were arrested at Balle Balle Club in Parklands, Nairobi, on January 1 and deported on January 4 for what the immigration office called a violation of their temporary passes, allegedly to promote transnational culture.The magistrate had directed on Friday the girls be kept in a safe house owned by the proprietor of Blue Heart, a non-governmental organisation against human trafficking.
Yesterday, an Immigration officer James Machirah applied to close the two files under inquiry- for the girls and that of the proprietor of Balle Balle Club Mr Safendra Kumar Sonwani who had secured the entry of the dancers- since they had been deported to Pakistan and India respectively.
Mr Sonwani had been detained for investigations over human-trafficking alongside his employee Mr Mika Osicharo.
“I urge the court to close the file of the eight foreign girls since they have been deported,” Mr Machirah said. “There is no body to testify against Mr Sonwani who has since been deported also.”
Mr Machirah said the valid visas and special passes held by the girls and signed by the CS Culture, Sports and Gender Mr Echesa were not valid.
“The documents in their possession had not been endorsed by the Tourism Regulatory Board-TRB,” Machirah.
He therefore told the magistrate the documents issued to the girls were not authentic minus the clearance by TRB.
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