Kenyan opposition figure and lawyer Miguna Miguna has been removed from an Air France flight in Paris moments before take-off at Charles De Gaulle airport.

The airline said in a tweet that it had received a request from the Kenyan authorities not to allow him to board the flight to Nairobi.

Air France removed me from Flight AF0814 from Charles De Gaulle Airport to JKIA, which was about to take off. Despot Uhuru Kenyatta and Conman Raila Odinga are so afraid, cowardly, tyrannical and weak that they have sent RED ALERTS to all airlines. We shall never surrender! pic.twitter.com/SRdOZqlvxR

— Dr. Miguna Miguna (@MigunaMiguna) January 7, 2020

Dear Mister Miguna, we fully understand your disappointment but confirm, that to comply with international regulations governing air transport we were obliged to deny boarding as soon as we received the request of Kenyan authorities, as Lufthansa had to do it this morning.

— Air France Newsroom (@AFnewsroom) January 8, 2020

Air France is the second airline to deny Mr Miguna boarding after Lufthansa left him stranded at Tegel Airport in the German capital, Berlin, on Tuesday because there was a red alert on his name.

 

Kenyan government spokesperson Cyrus Oguna told the Daily Nation newspaper on Tuesday that he was not aware of any red alert and was not sure whether it was issued recently or in February 2018 when Mr Miguna was deported.

 

Mr Miguna was deported to Canada - where he is a citizen - following his role in the unofficial swearing-in of opposition leader Raila Odinga as "the people's president".

He has since then been fighting in the courts to be allowed back to the country.

He gained a court order in December 2018 that directed the immigration department to issue him with travel documents to facilitate his re-entry to the country.

Earlier this week, the interior ministry said it would comply with the order.