Martha Karua phones confiscated at Entebbe Airport, vows to sue Ugandan government

Kenyan lawyer and politician Martha Karua is preparing to take legal action against the government of Uganda following her blocked entry and deportation from the country on Monday, June 22.

Karua says during a grueling detention at Entebbe International Airport , immigration officials confiscated her phones for more than three hours before deporting her.

Karua made the revelation during an interview with NTV Kenya after she was denied entry into Uganda.

She had travelled to Kampala to join the defence team representing Dr Kizza Besigye, Obeid Lutale and former Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago.

Her deportation came as Lukwago’s bail hearing was ongoing at the Makindye Chief Magistrate’s Court.

Karua said she had already been cleared and had entered the airport baggage area when an immigration officer returned and told her there was an alert on her name.

“At the airport, I was cleared and I entered and waited at the baggage area for President Kajama and Lawyer Gicheru to be cleared,” Karua said.

She said the officer told her that her supervisor wanted to see her. She was then moved from one officer to another until she met a man who identified himself as the Principal Immigration Officer at the airport.

Karua said officers told him the alert against her stated “entry prohibited”.

She said she was later taken to an office and asked to fill forms, but she declined because the information requested was already in her passport.

“They said they wanted to interrogate me. I told them I was not going to be interrogated without my lawyer because they had not told me why they were holding me,” she said.

Karua said the officers later seized her two phones.

“When I got my phone to do something with it, one of them just snatched it. He left me in the room with a lady. I pulled out my second phone and out of nowhere another person came in like lightning and snatched it,” she narrated.

“I asked why they did that, because if I am being deported, that doesn’t entitle them to my property. I asked them to put me on the Kenya Airways that I had come with. But during the back and forth, the flight departed.”

Karua confronted the Principal Immigration Officer why “his juniors were behaving like “bullies” by grabbing her phones.”

She also revealed that officers wanted to take her to what they called a holding room, which she interpreted as a cell.

She said she instead asked to be taken to the Kenya Airways lounge. 

“The Kenyan Airways immediately owned me. They came for me and took me to the lounge. But the Ugandans sent their security officers to come and man the lounge.”

Karua said the phones were returned only when she was boarding, but she refused to take them.

“They stayed with my phones for three and a half hours,” she said.

“I told them, they were contaminated and I could not touch them. I refused to take them because in three and a half hours, I know they had already mined information from my phones and I do not know what they had put on my phones which can be harmful to me. So I left them with my phones and I will be suing.”

The Uganda Law Society earlier said Karua had been denied entry without reason. It said she had travelled with Law Society of Kenya president Cecil Kanjama and lawyer Gicheru, who were allowed into the country.

Ugandan immigration authorities had not issued a public explanation by press time.