Missing Kenyan anti-government protesters resurface as police chief appears in court

Three Kenyans who were abducted last month after taking part in an anti-government protest have resurfaced, amid anger directed at a police chief who belatedly honoured a court summons in relation to the disappearances shortly after they were found.

Bob Njagi, and brothers Aslam and Jamil Longton were found in Kiambu county, north of Nairobi, Faith Odhiambo, the president of the Law Society of Kenya, said in the early hours of Friday.

“I am informed that Jamil Longton and his brother Aslam were dumped at Gachie border of Kiambu and Nairobi by their captors,” she posted on X. She then wrote another message about Njagi: “At around 1am Bob Njagi managed find his way to Tigoni police station and for assistance. He is alive and well”.

Social media images show the brothers appearing distressed after their release.

“I thank Kenyans who stood by us,” Jamil Longton said in a video posted by Odhiambo. “We’ll share more information through the president of the Law Society of Kenya.

The three went missing on 19 August after being taken away by people alleged to be police. The brothers were abducted in the afternoon after they left their house, while Njagi was ejected from a bus by masked men that night and put into another vehicle.

Their disappearances followed deadly anti-government protests that lasted nearly two months and in which dozens went missing.

The Law Society of Kenya filed a case against the government and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations relating to the disappearance of the three men.

The matter caught national attention after the acting inspector general of police, Gilbert Masengeli, snubbed court summons to answer questions about their whereabouts.

Last Friday, after Masengeli had failed to honour the summons seven times, a judge ordered him to serve six months in prison for contempt of court, suspending the sentence for seven days to give him another chance to appear before the court. On Friday Masengeli made a last-minute appearance and apologised for his absence, thus avoiding the conviction.

“We believe [the men’s release] was intended to provide immediate grounds for [Masengeli] to challenge his conviction,” Cornelius Oduor of the Kenya Human Rights Commission told Agence France-Presse.

Although the contempt charge against Masengeli was dropped, the case into the men’s disappearance is to continue.

The case once again turned the spotlight on widespread abductions and enforced disappearances in Kenya, and the general lack of accountability by authorities.

The Independent Police Oversight Authority, a civilian watchdog body for police work, is investigating many complaints of such cases, including from the recent anti-government protests.

In a rare conviction last year, three police officers were handed sentences including the death penalty for the murder of a human rights lawyer and two other people six years after their bodies were found in sacks in a river.

Otsieno Namwaya, an associate director at Human Rights Watch, said the abduction of Njagi and the Longton brothers “falls in the pattern of the other abductions” involving the police.

“The most unfortunate thing is that everything that they’re doing is in violation of the law,” he said. “These illegalities have to end, and secondly, the people who are involved need to know they have violated the law and they need to be held to account.”

Hussein Khalid, the executive director of the Haki Africa human rights organisation, said it was “a good thing” that Njagi and the Longton brothers have been found alive, and their finding “begins the quest for justice”.

“We must know who was holding these individuals,” he said. “We want action taken against them and we will not relent.”