• Gire Ali was suspended after filming and sharing the video of a Chinese aircraft landing at the JKIA amid concerns of the Coronavirus spread.
• The assistant security agent has sued his employer – Kenya Airways – for wrongful suspension
No charges will be preferred against whistleblower Gire Ali for allegedly recording the Chinese jetliner that landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with 239 passengers aboard on February 26.
The DPP and DCI on Thursday told Justice Weldon Korir that they had not been instructed to investigate the Kenya Airways employee who was in court for the mention of a case in which he has sued his employer for wrongful suspension.
The Anti-Terrorism Police Unit also distanced itself from the matter.
The Director of Public Prosecution and Director of Criminal Investigations asked the court to remove them from the case but Gire’s lawyer Danstan Omari opposed their application.
Omari said that Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia had on Wednesday said Gire committed a criminal offence and that he should be prosecuted.
As such, the DCI and DPP cannot be removed from the case, he said.
KQ argued that Gire's case was wrongly in the Constitutional Court and that it should have been filed in the Employment and Labour Court.
The court extended orders barring the arrest of the KQ employee until the case is heard and determined.
Judge Weldon directed both the state and KQ to file formal applications and similarly file responses to the petition by Gire.
The court was told that Gire was to resume work yesterday following orders issued to that effect on Tuesday.
The case will be mentioned on March 30.
Gire was suspended after filming and sharing the video of the Chinese aircraft landing at the JKIA amid concerns of the Coronavirus spread. The Chinese city of Wuhan is the epicentre of Coronavirus, which has been renamed Covid-19.
Court documents say that Gire, while on duty, witnessed the landing of the China Southern Airlines plane contrary to communications by Kenya Airways that flights from China had been suspended due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
“I was very much perturbed and shocked to see the China Southern Airlines plane landing at the airport while on January 31 my employer had suspended service to Guangzhou, China which information was communicated through our official Twitter handle,” he said.
KQ had not revoked the suspension of Chinese flights notice. As a security agent, Gire says he was concerned.
“On the same day, between 2pm and 3pm I received a call from unknown persons being informed that I was urgently needed for questioning at the Kenya Airways corporate investigations offices but I never showed up,” he says.
The following day, he went to KQ's corporate investigations offices where he was questioned for six hours.
He was threatened, with head of corporate security Bernard Oganga intimating that, according to his (Gire's) ethnicity, he is a terrorist and warned that the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit would be involved in the matter.
Gire has been KQ's assistant security agent since January 16, 2019. His duties include providing security to aircraft, passengers, crew, cargo, courier and company assets.