Mungiki man given asylum in the UK

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY EUGENE OKUMU

A 27 year old man who admitted to having killed between 100 and 400 people has been granted asylum in the UK after he said that if he is deported, he is likely to be the victim of a reprisal attack.

According to the UK newspaper Daily Mail,John Thuo, a former member of the outlawed Mungiki sect, moved to the UK as an illegal immigrant in 2003, and has been granted a three year asylum after consideration by the National Asylum Support Service.

Thuo who also admitted to having participated in female genital mutilation has argued that if he should be deported to Kenya, he will be beheaded by the remnants of the sect members.

Thuo’s appeal against being deported from the UK was granted in March after an expert witness testified that Mungiki members were known to behead those who had fled the organisation. The judge presiding over the tribunal also took into consideration Thuo’s mental health, and threats that he would kill himself if he was deported.

Thuo will have an option to apply for an extension of his asylum after the three years he was granted end. Thuo told the tribunal during the hearings in London that he joined the Mungiki sect in Nairobi when he was just ten, but rose through the ranks to become a senior member running a security racket.

Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport, said, “It is extremely worrying that someone who has admitted to killing so many people is not being investigated by the police in this country. And it is even more worrying he is able to successfully claim asylum despite what he says he has done.”

A spokesman for the Aegis Trust, a British non governmental organisation which campaigns to prevent crimes against humanity, said, "Anyone suspected of international crimes should be held to account."

The Home Office in response to the ruling by the tribunal that granted Thuo asylum said, “We are disappointed by the tribunal’s decision, but we can only appeal when a specific error of law is identified in the ruling. In this case there were no grounds for appeal.”