Lagos, Nigeria - A group of international human rights campaigners has urged the Ugandan government to disclose any evidence it claims to have against the detained Kenyan human rights defender Al-Amin Kimathi or release him. The call was jointly made Friday by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reprieve, and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, in a statement obtained by PANA.

Kimathi is the executive director of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, a non-governmental organization that for several years has documented and publicly challenged arbitrary detention and rendition carried out in East Africa in the context of counter-terrorism operations.

In August 2010, Kimathi criticized Kenya’s transfer to Uganda, without respecting extradition procedures, of people accused in connection with the July 2010 bombings in Kampala.

Kimathi was arrested on 15 September along with a Kenyan lawyer, Mbugua Mureithi, when they traveled to Uganda to observe the suspects’ court appearance.

Mureithi was released after three days and deported to Kenya. Kimathi was charged with terrorism, murder, and attempted murder on 20 September, alongside the suspects whose rights he was defending and has been in a maximum security prison since then.

Kimathi applied to be released on bail, but his initial application was denied in December 2010. A second bail application was submitted in February 2011 and scheduled to be heard in March, but the hearing was postponed and has not been rescheduled.

The group said the right to bail is protected under the Ugandan constitution, and that bail should not be denied in circumstances which would result in the violation of the right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent before proven guilty.

Over the past year the state prosecution has not disclosed any evidence against Kimathi or the other defendants, apart from a very brief case summary and an indictment, laying out the charges.

The director of public prosecutions has indicated, however, that the majority of the evidence will be disclosed on Monday, when Kimathi, along with 18 other defendants, is expected to appear in court for a pretrial hearing on charges of terrorism for the July 2010 bombings.

“The fact that the Ugandan government has failed to disclose any evidence against Al-Amin Kimathi, after detaining him for nearly one year, suggests that the criminal process is being used as a cloak behind which to silence an effective human rights defender,” said Clare Algar, executive director
of Reprieve.

“If the Ugandan government does not immediately disclose evidence, Kimathi should be released as a matter of urgency to get on with his important work,” Algar said.

Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Kimathi seems to have been sitting in jail for a year for calling attention to injustices by Kenya and Uganda...If Uganda can’t show that it has a serious case against him, it should free him and drop the charges immediately.”

“The Ugandan government should immediately ensure that all defendants have access to capable defense counsel and set a trial date within a reasonable time, as the constitution guarantees,” said Michelle Kagari, deputy Africa programme director of Amnesty International.

Pana 11/09/2011