The families of four Turkish refugees suspected to have been abducted in Nairobi on Friday hope to block what they believe are plans to fly their kin to Istanbul for prosecution. This came as civil society groups call for President William Ruto’s administration to find and protect the missing individuals.
Necdet Seyitoglu, who was released after being held for eight hours, on Saturday October 19 told Nation.Africa that he and the families of the missing Turks are monitoring flights to Istanbul as they hope that investigations by the United Nations and UK can pile pressure to release the missing individuals.
Amnesty International released a statement on Saturday afternoon, calling on the Kenyan government and the United Nations to step in and protect the rights of the missing four.
The civil society organisation’s local office asked the UN and the international community to watch the developments closely, holding that transnational repression is an international crime.
“Amnesty International Kenya calls on the government of Kenya to take immediate action to locate the missing individuals, ensure their safety and return to their families… That this is happening in the month that Kenya has successfully applied to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council is deeply concerning,” Amnesty International Kenya Section Director Irungu Houghton said in the statement.
Mustafa Genç, Abdullah Genç, Hüseyin Yesilsu, Necdet Seyitoglu, Oztürk Uzun, Alparslan Tascı and Saadet Tascı were abducted on Friday morning, in different parts of Nairobi, by suspected Turkish intelligence agents.
Mr Seyitoglu, Mr Abdullah Genc and Mr Saadet Tasci were later released unconditionally, but their personal effects such as mobile phones and other electronics were confiscated.
All of them were involved in humanitarian activities under a well-organised community organisation called Gulen Movement named after the US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Mr Seyitoglu is a British national, while all the other abductees are Turkish nationals. They are thought to be among individuals living abroad believed by the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be opposed to the government.
On Saturday, Necdet told Nation Africa that a report has been filed with the British High Commission, and that another one would be filed with the United Nations, which had classified the missing four as refugees.
Mr Uzun was issued with a refugee identification card in January this year, while Mr Mustafa’s ID was issued in July, 2023.
Mr Tasci got his refugee identification card in October, 2020 and Huseyin’s was processed in January, 2021.
Mr Seyitoglu in the interview said that aside from reporting the incident to the UN and British High Commission, the families of the missing four are monitoring flights to Istanbul, in the hope of intercepting any plans to transport their kin to Turkey where they would likely be jailed on trumped up charges.
“Yesterday (Friday) at around 4.30pm after being released, my first motivation was to find my missing friends. I heard that some of my friends had reported me missing to the British High Commission and the local police. I was at the airport until 4am checking flights to see if they may be deported. We have heard that they are still in Kenya but we have got no official responses from authorities,” Mr Seyotoglu said.
Mr Seyotoglu said that he was released on account of his British nationality, after being held for at least eight hours.
After the abduction, all seven were forced into one vehicle with black bags over their heads.
While he could not recount the exact number of abductors, Mr Seyitoglu said that they were all armed and covering their faces with masks. The men introduced themselves as Turkish special forces.
Mr Seyitoglu told them he is a British national. After being driven for several hours, the abductees were separated.
Mr Seyotoglu said he was left in a remote town centre whose name he did not get, and handed Sh1,000 which he used to return to Nairobi.
Mustafa Genc, one of the missing four, was once an interpreter for Selahaddin Gulen, a nephew of billionaire and founder of Fethullah Gulen.
Selahaddin was abducted in Nairobi by Turkish intelligence agents in May, 2021 before being flown to Türkiye.
While the Turkish government initially sought Selahaddin Gulen’s extradition on account of alleged child molestation charges, he was eventually charged with establishing and running an armed terrorist organisation.
Selahaddin was convicted in 2022, and handed a sentence of three years and four months. He had initially been sentenced to 12 years, before an appeals court lowered the punishment.
Türkiye and Kenya have a dark history of such abductions and extraditions with the most high-profile being that of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan in Nairobi in February 1999 by Turkish intelligence officers and Israeli spies with the help of their Nairobi counterparts. He would later be tried in and imprisoned in Türkiye.
The Friday abductions have rekindled past incidents in which different administrations in Kenya have allowed other governments to conduct espionage missions, some of which have led to extradition, rendition and even execution of foreign nationals without following the court process.
In some of the recorded incidents, local authorities have collaborated with foreign governments to remove individuals seeking refuge in Kenya.
In February, 2023 South Sudanese national Morris Mabior Awikjok Bak was picked up by Kenyan policemen, who claimed he was wanted in Juba for terror-related charges.
Mr Bak fled to Kenya in April, 2021 after claiming he had received death threats from senior government officials he had been critical of.
The father of 22 has been in the custody of South Sudanese security agency since. In June, defamation charges against Mr Bak were dropped.
Earlier in 2020, prominent South Sudan activist Peter Biar Ajak said he had been warned that South Sudanese intelligence officers had been sent to abduct and kill him in Nairobi — where he had fled.
It took the intervention of American President Donald Trump to relocate him to the United States. In a strange twist, Mr Ajak was charged in a US court for conspiring to illegally buy and export military-grade arms to overthrow the government of President Salva Kiir.
In 2021, three individuals were removed from Kenya allegedly to different foreign governments they were running from.
In November, 2021 Ethiopian national Samson Teklemichael was picked up by Kenyan plains clothes police officers. He was removed from his car while driving his Bentley in Kileleshwa, and forced into a Subaru. His whereabouts remain a mystery.
Five months earlier, Nnamdi Kanu, a Nigerian politician and leader of the separatist group Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, was kidnapped at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and detained in an unknown location for eight days.
He was then flown back to Nigeria and arraigned for terror-related charges. And one month before Mr Kanu, Selahaddin Gulen was picked up by Turkish intelligence officers.
