Kenya allows opposition figures to travel after barring them overnight

By Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Two prominent supporters of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga were allowed to leave the country on Tuesday a day after authorities prevented them from doing so.

Senator James Orengo and financier Jimi Wanjigi were initially barred from flying by immigration officials who said they had not been notified that a court had ordered a travel ban on the men be lifted.

They were eventually allowed to fly on Tuesday afternoon to Zimbabwe to attend the funeral of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Odinga's spokesman said.

The Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment and it was not clear why the men's passports were suspended in the first place.

The incident is likely to intensify accusations that the government is infringing civil rights as it cracks down on the opposition following disputed elections last year, and Odinga's symbolic inauguration of himself as president last month.

The government shut down three privately-owned television stations planning to screen the "inauguration", and deported a prominent opposition lawyer in defiance of court orders, prompting a public rebuke from the chief justice.

A lawyer for Orengo and Wanjigi said they would seek legal redress.

"Once the court has given an order, all those officers who disobey that court order, they will bear personal responsibility for all that they have done in disobedience of the court order and in further infringement of the rights of my clients," Willis Otieno told reporters from Nairobi airport.

The head of Kenyan immigration services, Gordon Kihalangwa, said earlier that he had not received notification of the court order.

Odinga, the son of Kenya's first vice-president, is a long-time rival of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of the first president. Despite official results that show Kenyatta received 1.4 million more votes, Odinga claims he won elections in August, which the Supreme Court nullified on procedural grounds.

Repeat elections were held in October, but Odinga boycotted them, claiming they would be unfair.

(Additional reporting by George Obulutsa and Humphrey Malalo; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)