The family of Ndiangui Kinyagia, a 31-year-old technology consultant and outspoken social-media commentator, says he has been missing since the weekend, when a convoy of unmarked Subaru vehicles – believed to belong to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations – descended on his rented apartment in the Nairobi suburb of Kinoo and forcibly broke inside.
According to neighbours interviewed by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), between six and ten cars arrived around 2 p.m. Saturday and idled for hours as plain-clothes officers negotiated with the building’s caretaker.
Witnesses said the standoff ended shortly after 9 p.m., when officers kicked in the door, carting away Mr. Kinyagia’s laptop and mobile phones. The blogger himself was not seen during the raid; the last traceable call on his phone, relatives say, was to his mother at 1 p.m. that afternoon.
Today, the LSK filed a habeas-corpus petition in the High Court, demanding that the National Police Service and the DCI “produce the body of the subject, dead or alive.” Faith Odhiambo, the society’s president, told reporters the organization feared an enforced disappearance. “Kenyans cannot be spirited away by state agents simply for exercising free speech,” she said after meeting the family.
Mr. Kinyagia – an advocate of the High Court and founder of a small software firm, reportedly posted a minute-by-minute “Gen Z Liberation Day” schedule for nationwide protests planned on June 25, the first anniversary of fatal demonstrations against last year’s finance bill.
His thread was shared more than 4,000 times and drew pointed criticism from government supporters who accused him of incitement.
Officials have not publicly acknowledged detaining the blogger.
Wahome Thuku, a Nairobi lawyer who first sounded the alarm on X (formerly Twitter), said officers showed no warrant during the weekend operation. “They broke into a private home and disappeared with property,” he wrote, calling the episode evidence of a “rogue security apparatus.”
In a statement, Amnesty International Kenya urged the government to “disclose Mr. Kinyagia’s whereabouts immediately or release him unconditionally.”
The High Court has scheduled an emergency hearing of the LSK petition for Wednesday morning.
