Advocate Ndegwa Njiru has disclosed that former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala, who was arrested on Wednesday night, is being held at the Eldama Ravine Police Station.
Malala was arrested on a controversial play, ‘Echoes of War’, that he authored for Butere Girls Secondary School.
He was whisked away last night by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation, and Njiru has been following his whereabouts since.
Clephas Malala arrested over a script play. Photo: Courtesy.
“Advocates from Nakuru Cleophas Malala, one of the Gitungatis from western Kenya and a strong pillar of our struggle, are being held at Eldama Ravine Police Station. Kindly and urgently mobilise. He is a prisoner of conscience,” he wrote on Thursday morning.
According to Malala’s driver, the DCI officers had initially taken him to the Nakuru Central Police Station before he was whisked away in a police Subaru to an unknown location.
The play ‘Echoes of War’ has been the centre of controversy since making it to the nationals in the high school drama festivals after students set to act in the play were initially sent home by their school principal and their place handed to Vihiga Boys High School.
The court was involved and later allowed the students to present the play.
However, the drama was not over yet, as the author, who is one of Gachagua’s devout followers, would be barred from accessing the students who were staying at Kirobon Girls Secondary School.
Dozens of DCI officers surrounded his vehicle while Malala lamented that no arrest warrant was shown to him.
Commenting on his arrest, Gachagua called out the government, which he alleged had normalised a lying culture.
“The use of the criminal justice system to suppress creativity and social audit has reached alarming proportions. It is a shame of unimaginable proportion that dozens of DCI detectives in five vehicles have been dispatched to arrest and intimidate Senator Cleophas Malala for writing a script that has won its way to the National Drama Festival in Nakuru.”
