Deputy President William Ruto has apologised to the Turkish businessman Harun Aydin after his controversial deportation yesterday morning.
In a tweet, the DP said he called Aydin and apologised to him on behalf of the government describing the arrest, torture and profiling of the businessman before being asked to fly out as political pettiness.
“Just talked and apologised on behalf of the government to Aydin Harun, now in Turkey, who was politically arrested, tortured and falsely profiled as a ‘terrorist’ but later asked to fly out not to ashame those involved. Political pettiness is expensive/dangerous and will destroy our economy.Shame,” he tweeted.
Aydin, who was arrested on Saturday after jetting back from Uganda on a chartered flight by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) over alleged terror financing claims, was to be arraigned at Kahawa Anti-Terrorism Law Court but he was controversially deported at dawn yesterday.
Senior lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi and his team who were at Kahawa law courts ahead of Aydin’s case confirmed that indeed he had left the country.
Abdullahi said Aydin has a legal working permit that expires in 2023 and they will seek a judicial review as they pursue all legal avenues to bring back the businessman.
” We will challenge the process to deport him, because deportation is done according to certain procedure and laws. The Government cannot just deport somebody just because they’re a friend to the deputy president, that’s not an offence. So we will challenge that and bring him back to this country, whether it is this year or next year or the other year, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
Aydin was to be part delegation accompanying the DP to Uganda but the latter was not cleared to fly out of the country.