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NAIROBI: Three Kenyans at the heart of a high-profile abduction case have been freed, rights groups said on Friday, accusing security forces of keeping them captive for weeks after they took part in anti-government protests.
The three were allegedly abducted by men identifying themselves as police on Aug. 19 in Kitengela, some 30 km south of the capital Nairobi.
Images on social media showed two of the men, looking shaken, following their release late Thursday.
“Our partners have confirmed their release,” said Cornelius Oduor, of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, said.
“(The images) clearly shows that the men were in distress ... It points to the fact that they have been in captivity.”
There has been no confirmation of where Bob Njagi, Aslam Longton and his brother Jamil Longton were held.
But Oduor said: “We strongly believe that they were taken by security agents of Kenya.”
The two brothers were dropped near the capital, according to tweets from the Kenyan Law Society, while Njagi presented himself to a nearby police station.
The case has dominated the Kenyan news in recent days after a court in Nairobi held the acting police chief, Gilbert Masengeli, in contempt for failing to appear to answer questions about the disappearance of the three men.
Having been given seven days to attend court or face a six-month prison sentence, Masengeli made a last-minute appearance on Friday and apologized for his absence, thus avoiding the conviction.
“We believe (the men’s release) was intended to provide immediate grounds for (Masengeli) to challenge his conviction,” said Oduor.
While the contempt charge against Masengeli was dropped, the case into the men’s disappearance was set to continue.
The Independent Police Oversight Authority has said it was looking into multiple complaints of unlawful arrests and abductions in the wake of large-scale anti-government protests that broke out in Kenya in June.
More than 60 people died during the protests themselves, leading to the resignation of police chief Japhet Koome.
Previous abduction cases have sparked furious protests in Kenya.
In February 2023, three police officers were handed sentences ranging from 24 years in jail to the death penalty for the brutal murder of rights lawyer Willie Kimani and two other people.
Their bodies were found wrapped in sacks and dumped in a river outside Nairobi in June 2016.

AMSTERDAM: Dutch prosecutors on Friday said a knife-wielding assailant who allegedly stabbed and killed a man and wounded another in Rotterdam on Thursday night may have had a terrorist motive.
The 22-year-old man stabbed his first victim in a parking garage beneath Rotterdam’s Erasmus Bridge before moving to street level, where he fatally attacked another person, local media reported.
He was subsequently overpowered by bystanders and police and taken into custody.
Prosecutors said he had been charged with murder and attempted murder with a terrorist motive.
“Initial investigation shows the suspect was possibly driven by ideology,” the prosecutors said in a statement, as they said the man had shouted “Allahu Akbar,” which means “God is Greater” in Arabic, several times during the attack.
“But other motives cannot be excluded,” they added.
The victim who was killed was a 32-year-old man from Rotterdam, while the one who was wounded was a 33-year-old man from Switzerland, the prosecutors said.
The suspect lives in Amersfoort, a city located about 80 km (50 miles) from Rotterdam, they said.
De Telegraaf newspaper reported that a personal trainer who had been giving an outdoor class knocked the suspect unconscious with a squat stick that he had broken in two, and other bystanders threw chairs at him.
Witnesses described the suspect as carrying two large knives and targeting random individuals.