National Resistance Movement self-proclaimed General Miguna Miguna, now says the Canadian government officials failed him during the ordeal he went through while in Kenya.
The lawyer who spoke to The Globe and Mail from his home in Richmond Hill, Ont., on Thursday (a day after he landed at Toronto's Pearson Airport), said Kenyan officials forced him onto a KLM flight to Canada on Tuesday night after illegally detaining him for almost a week, during which time Canadian officials failed to provide him consular assistance.
"They (Canadian officials) have not spoken with me. It's a big failure because they needed to scream, they needed to make noise. They needed to do something drastic and they never did," the 55-year-old husband and father said.
He said they did not share any information with his wife, Jane, despite keeping the Canadian officials "fully abreast" of the situation.
A senior Canadian government official who spoke to The Globe and Mail on condition of anonymity said authorities were in touch with Miguna's family, but hit roadblocks when the Kenyan authorities would not tell them where he was being held.
The official said the government considered the case high-profile due to its political nature.
This even as Canada Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement on Wednesday February 7, saying Canada was "deeply concerned by the Kenyan government's "unlawful" detention of opposition supporters and the shutdown of some media outlets."
Canada urged the Kenyan government to uphold its constitution, to allow freedom of expression and to respect court orders, including those that order the release of those granted bail.