More than 1,000 Kenyans are languishing in foreign jails, the government has revealed.
Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said on Wednesday that among them was 37-year-old Margaret Nduta Macharia, who has become the focus of global attention following an announcement of her imminent execution in Vietnam, where she was sentenced to death for drug trafficking.
Although the CS did not reveal the actual number and where they are being held, he described Ms Nduta's case as "complex and difficult", despite calls from her family and other concerned Kenyans for diplomatic intervention.
“Yes, the government has been trying to converse with Vietnam to see if there can be mitigation in this process and we hope that it will be successful so that there will be no summary execution,” said Mr Mudavadi.
“I may not have the exact figure on Vietnam, but we have... a total of about 1,000 Kenyans in different countries who are serving jail terms for different offences,” he said.
Not all cases are drug-related, he added.
Mr Mudavadi, who is also the Prime Cabinet Secretary, spoke during a press briefing following political consultations between Kenya and the Netherlands.
“We are trying to gather data because when Kenyans travel, they do not declare that they are travelling, so, they travel on their own volition and it is their right and they can go to whichever country they have been issued a visa for.”
He also spoke on the issue of drug trafficking. The CS said that in Ms Nduta's case, the government is not declaring her guilty or innocent, but was using the record from the judicial process in Vietnam.
He said Kenyan missions have also been instructed to regularly engage citizens to help them avoid getting into trouble with the law.
Vietnam has some of the world's strictest drug laws, with capital punishment applicable for trafficking over 600 grammes of heroin or cocaine.
Ms Nduta's mother, Purity Wangui, who lives in Weithaga village, Murang’a County, is distraught over her daughter's impending execution.
She has appealed to the Kenyan authorities, including President William Ruto and her area MP Ndindi Nyoro, to intervene and have her daughter repatriated to serve her sentence in Kenya.
Ms Wangui, who does not have the financial means to travel to Vietnam, is desperate to see her daughter one last time before her execution.
Reports indicate that smugglers, mostly women, attempt to smuggle the drugs mainly through China, Singapore, Vietnam, India and Malaysia.
In 2018, the then Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma said that at least 1,300 Kenyans were being held in foreign jails.
Of these, 79 were being held in neighbouring Tanzania, 47 in Uganda and 15 in Ethiopia.
Mr Washington Oloo, the then director of Diaspora and Consular Services in the ministry, said that 478 of the Kenyans in foreign prisons had been convicted and were serving their sentences, most of them life terms.
