Embakasi East MP Babu Owino alias Paul Ongili has filed an application seeking police to produce him at Milimani High Court today.
In an application filed by his lawyer Duncan Okatch, Owino wants the court to direct Inspector of Police and the DCI to produce him before the High Court.
"An order that the 1st respondent and/or his representatives appear in person or by his duly authorised agents together with the original of any warrant or order of detention to show cause why the applicant should not be released forthwith," Okatch said in the court documents.
Okatch wants the police, DCI or any other officer in charge of the police in the jurisdiction where Babu Owino is being held to be ordered and directed to release him on bail or on such terms and conditions as the court deems fit to grant.
Okatch stated that Owino was forcefully arrested by officers of the inspector General, DCI and OCS JKIA police station on July 19, 2023, upon arriving in Nairobi from Mombasa.
He said he was allegedly bungled up and taken to an unknown destination by the said officers and all efforts to trace him at several police stations within Nairobi have proved futile.
"The said arrest and detention occurred on the morning of the first day of the three-day nationwide peaceful demonstrations organised by the Azimio One Kenya Alliance, in which the applicant is a fervent member and it was a notorious fact that the Applicant intended to take part in the said demonstrations," the court documents reads.
Okatch further said that Article 37 of the constitution guarantees that every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, demonstrate, and present petitions to public authorities and as such, the applicant’s detention is unlawful, illegal and affront to his rights.
He said despite being a member of the opposition, Owino is still entitled to equal protection and benefit of the law by dint of Article 27 of The Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
"Unless this honourable court urgently intervenes and grants the orders sought in the instant application, the respondents will indeed be successful in utilising the criminal justice system to illegally detain, embarrass, disrepute, and even harm the applicant herein," Okatch states in the court documents.