Madam Omamo: Please help this Kenyan rotting in Saudi Arabia jail on false charges

• Dec 15, 2021

By Isaac Newton Kinity

This is an open letter to Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo.

Madam Omamo, I write to humbly plead with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which you head to intervene and have a Kenyan, Peter Karis aka Mwana wa Mary (pictured above) who is currently rotting in Saudi Arabia jail released.

As I stated in my earlier letter, Karis has legal documents to stay in Saudi Arabia.

He was, however, arrested on April 19, 2021 and taken to Sahafah Police Station without any charges being preferred.

He was taken to court the following day on April 20, 2021, where he was found innocent and released without any charges being preferred against him.

 But instead of police releasing him, they transferred him to Tarhil Deportation Center where he was detained.

At the deportation center, no one explained to him why he was arrested and why he was being detained at the facility.

Karis is popular in the Arab world where he has been helping Kenyans who have had problems with their employers, and many others who have had problems with the job recruitment Agencies.

It has to be understood that for every Kenyan recruited for a job in any of the Arab Nation, a total of Sh3 million is paid to the Agency by the willing master/employer who aspires to have a helper from Kenya.

One of the conditions of paying that large sum of money is to facilitate a contract of not less than three years of work by the helper at the employer’s residence without any permission whatsoever of leaving the premises before the expiry of the contract.

The other condition is to make sure that all the legal documents, including those of travel belonging to the Kenyan, are  confiscated by the partner Agency on arrival and handed over to the employer immediately, only to be released to the Kenyan after the expiry of the contract.

Most employers have been mistreating their helpers, sometimes to the extent of killing them.

Karis and others have been volunteering to help those they find suffering and desperate. 

He has challenged the torture of Kenyans in the Arab world and has helped many return home to escape torture or killings by their employers and by the recruitment Agencies.

In July, I called and talked with Karis who told me he had not been briefed over the reason why he was being detained despite having legal documents to stay in Saudi Arabia.

It is suspected that he was arrested on instigation by a Kenyan Diplomat at the Kenyan Embassy in Saudi Arabia called Diplomat Juma, who with certain politicians in Kenya, own a fleet of job recruitment Agencies both, in Kenya and in the Arab world including those in Saudi Arabia. 

Karis and many other Kenyans have been complaining about the treatment of the Kenyan job seekers, by those recruitment Agencies, and this might have been the cause of his predicament. 

 I have contacted both the Saudi Arabia Government and a number of Human Rights Organisations in the world, and I hope and I pray that Karis is released to continue with his noble job of helping others in Agony in Saudi Arabia and in other parts of the Arab world, who have found themselves in the Arab World, in their quest to find jobs to help themselves and to help their families back in Kenya.

It was not until July 2021, when Saudi police revealed to Karis that he was accused by the Kenya embassy in Saudi Arabia of kidnapping Kenyan girls in Saudi Arabia and selling them elsewhere.

When he was taken to court there was no evidence at all.

Dear Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, I am writing this letter to you so that you can confirm that these are true facts from the Saudi Arabia police that the Kenya embassy in Saudi Arabia framed up charges against Karis to have him deported because diplomat Juma had become angry that Karis was denting the image of the agencies which are owned him and former Nairobi governor Mike Sonko.

Juma blames Karis whenever information leaks about Kenyans suffering in Saudi Arabia after being recruited by the agencies.

 I humbly plead with your office to take drastic measures against Juma.

Karis is a merciful, friendly and a social Kenyan who likes to help anyone in trouble regardless of tribe. Karis treats every Kenyan as sister or brother.

I sincerely plead with the Saudi government to extend the same humanitarian approach it accorded other Kenyans like Gladys Bonareri and her infant daughter Precious Kerubo.

I also call upon all Kenyans living abroad and back home to pray for Karis.