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The Standard, Kenya
June 30 2006
Revealed: How NSIS cleared Armenians
By Biketi Kikechi and Patrick Mathangani
The National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS) gave a clean bill
of health to the alleged Artur brothers, whose real identities are
now a mystery.
Yet it wasn't just the NSIS, Kenya's own equivalent of the United
States Federal Investigations Bureau (FBI) and Britain's MI6, which
slept on the job; three other Government agencies, which also play
the role of security watchdogs, merely opened their doors wide to the
duo, now believed to be international crooks on the run.
Principal Immigration Officer, Joseph Ndathi, displays the travelling
documents belonging to Artur Margaryan at the Kiruki Commission of
Inquiry at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on Thursday.
Pic by Jacob Otieno
It has also emerged, at the commission of inquiry into the bogus
Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargasyan, that even when their moment of
disgrace came and they had to be "kicked" out of the country, they
still enjoyed luxury of choice, a rare thing for deportees.
In the end, even as they boarded an Emirates plane to Dubai - a
destination they had the luxury to choose - they left no doubt as to
the extent to which they had compromised Kenya's security apparatus.
To crown the scandal, the bogus Margaryan checked out as Arthur
Gevorkiyan with a Russian passport, also believed to be forged, and
the police and Immigration officials just let him be.
Emergency certificate of travel
On that day, Sargasyan, the sunglass bedecked one who always passed
for Margaryan's sibling - claimed not to have a passport, even a
forged one.
But the Immigration Department was again at his beck-and-call,
processing for him an emergency certificate of travel that should
only have been valid for the day he flew out.
However, the document, which indicated he was on a business trip to
the United Arab Emirates, was valid for an entire month, contrary to
the law. The Immigration Department came under increasing scrutiny at
the Commission of Inquiry on Thursday when it emerged that foreigners
can, in fact, present forged documents and be issued with Kenyan
passports and other permits.
The commission heard that the NSIS, which should have ascertained
whether or not the mysterious foreigners had criminal records, simply
gave them a clean bill of health.
Another top Government organ - an inter-ministerial committee to boot
- sat at Nyayo House gave the foreigners a green light as investors.
And so did the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), which was
supposed to provide a certificate of good conduct before permits
could be issued.
It was, however, not clear from the evidence whether the security
lapse by the NSIS was deliberate. NSIS conducts investigations for
security clearance of persons who hold or may hold sensitive posts or
have access to sensitive information.
Brothers registered a company
On Thursday, Principal Immigration Officer Joseph Kathuri Ndathi took
to the floor as the Kiruki Commission of Inquiry entered its second
day and revealed that the Arturs got entry permits with the approval
of the NSIS, whose role was to conduct security vetting.
Ndathi told the commission he first got to learn about the presence
of the Armenians in the country on January 23, while processing their
entry permits.
It also emerged that the alleged brothers registered a company,
Brotherlink International Ltd, long before they got entry permits.
"We don't undertake verification on documents forwarded to us by
applicants unless we suspect they are criminals," said Ndathi.
Among the details in their application forms were Personal
Identification Numbers (PIN) from the Kenya Revenue Authority, where
they had presented themselves as civil servants. They presented the
firm's incorporation documents to justify their request for the
permits.
The evidence was adduced after documents were tabled to show the
alleged brothers travelled to Kenya and processed their business
documents using forged documents.
Said Ndathi: "We did not verify the authenticity of their passports
or bank statements produced to support their application because we
don't do that".
He blamed the department's ineptitude on a "serious shortage of staff
and the high number of applications" they receive everyday.
Interpol reported criminal dealings
The NSIS failed to notice that Artur Margaryan's passport number
AB0322223 had been reported lost in Armenia. Interpol Armenia also
reported in March that Artur Sargasyan lost his passport number
AF0599780 that was replaced, and yet the same passport number had
been approved as valid by the NSIS, according to Ndathi's evidence.
Ndathi's mitigation was that he would have declared the permit void,
arrested, prosecuted and later deported the alleged brothers had the
fraud been exposed. He agreed with Assisting Counsel Warui Mungai
that the entry permits were never cancelled despite the publicity
surrounding their activities.
"They were only cancelled on June 9, 2006, the day they were deported
and that means they were valid until that date," said Ndathi.
Interpol Armenia first reported the criminal dealings of the two
foreigners to their Kenyan counterparts on March 18, 2006. Artur,
whose real identity remains a mystery, stole the passport from Artur
Margaryan who still works in Yerevan as a tax collector.
Ndathi admitted that the passport his officers received from
Margaryan was the one Armenian police had said was lost and
cancelled. He confirmed that the department solely depended on the
documents presented by the Armenians and NSIS's approval.
Commission chairman Shedrach Kiruki was keen to know from the witness
why he never saw anything peculiar in the Armenians despite the
hullabaloo about them.
"My lords, I didn't see anything peculiar and it is only now that we
are seeing that the documents given to us were fake," replied Ndathi.
Potential threats to local security
The NSIS is responsible for identifying potential threats to local
security and advising the President on action to be taken. It also
carries out investigations for security clearance of persons with
access to sensitive information.
NSIS is tasked with advising the Government of any security threats,
and taking steps towards protecting the country and its people.
NSIS, formerly known as the Special Branch, was created in 1952 and
operated under the Commissioner of Police. It acted as a secret
intelligence unit for the colonial government during the Mau Mau
uprising.
In 1963, the Special Branch was delinked from the police and it was
not until 1969 that a presidential charter defined its functions. It
was later transformed into the Directorate of Security Intelligence
through a presidential charter in 1986.
The institution became infamous at the peak of the one-party rule in
the 1980s. Its agents were used in holding and torturing individuals
who were perceived to be anti-government. After local and
international outcry, NSIS was created in January 1999, with the
enactment of the National Security Intelligence Service Act.
Brig (Rtd) Wilson Boinett was appointed NSIS Director-General in 1999
and it was during his tenure that the outfit transformed itself into
a professionally run intelligence service. The current head of NSIS
is a military officer, Michael Gichangi.
June 30 2006
Revealed: How NSIS cleared Armenians
By Biketi Kikechi and Patrick Mathangani
The National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS) gave a clean bill
of health to the alleged Artur brothers, whose real identities are
now a mystery.
Yet it wasn't just the NSIS, Kenya's own equivalent of the United
States Federal Investigations Bureau (FBI) and Britain's MI6, which
slept on the job; three other Government agencies, which also play
the role of security watchdogs, merely opened their doors wide to the
duo, now believed to be international crooks on the run.
Principal Immigration Officer, Joseph Ndathi, displays the travelling
documents belonging to Artur Margaryan at the Kiruki Commission of
Inquiry at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on Thursday.
Pic by Jacob Otieno
It has also emerged, at the commission of inquiry into the bogus
Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargasyan, that even when their moment of
disgrace came and they had to be "kicked" out of the country, they
still enjoyed luxury of choice, a rare thing for deportees.
In the end, even as they boarded an Emirates plane to Dubai - a
destination they had the luxury to choose - they left no doubt as to
the extent to which they had compromised Kenya's security apparatus.
To crown the scandal, the bogus Margaryan checked out as Arthur
Gevorkiyan with a Russian passport, also believed to be forged, and
the police and Immigration officials just let him be.
Emergency certificate of travel
On that day, Sargasyan, the sunglass bedecked one who always passed
for Margaryan's sibling - claimed not to have a passport, even a
forged one.
But the Immigration Department was again at his beck-and-call,
processing for him an emergency certificate of travel that should
only have been valid for the day he flew out.
However, the document, which indicated he was on a business trip to
the United Arab Emirates, was valid for an entire month, contrary to
the law. The Immigration Department came under increasing scrutiny at
the Commission of Inquiry on Thursday when it emerged that foreigners
can, in fact, present forged documents and be issued with Kenyan
passports and other permits.
The commission heard that the NSIS, which should have ascertained
whether or not the mysterious foreigners had criminal records, simply
gave them a clean bill of health.
Another top Government organ - an inter-ministerial committee to boot
- sat at Nyayo House gave the foreigners a green light as investors.
And so did the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), which was
supposed to provide a certificate of good conduct before permits
could be issued.
It was, however, not clear from the evidence whether the security
lapse by the NSIS was deliberate. NSIS conducts investigations for
security clearance of persons who hold or may hold sensitive posts or
have access to sensitive information.
Brothers registered a company
On Thursday, Principal Immigration Officer Joseph Kathuri Ndathi took
to the floor as the Kiruki Commission of Inquiry entered its second
day and revealed that the Arturs got entry permits with the approval
of the NSIS, whose role was to conduct security vetting.
Ndathi told the commission he first got to learn about the presence
of the Armenians in the country on January 23, while processing their
entry permits.
It also emerged that the alleged brothers registered a company,
Brotherlink International Ltd, long before they got entry permits.
"We don't undertake verification on documents forwarded to us by
applicants unless we suspect they are criminals," said Ndathi.
Among the details in their application forms were Personal
Identification Numbers (PIN) from the Kenya Revenue Authority, where
they had presented themselves as civil servants. They presented the
firm's incorporation documents to justify their request for the
permits.
The evidence was adduced after documents were tabled to show the
alleged brothers travelled to Kenya and processed their business
documents using forged documents.
Said Ndathi: "We did not verify the authenticity of their passports
or bank statements produced to support their application because we
don't do that".
He blamed the department's ineptitude on a "serious shortage of staff
and the high number of applications" they receive everyday.
Interpol reported criminal dealings
The NSIS failed to notice that Artur Margaryan's passport number
AB0322223 had been reported lost in Armenia. Interpol Armenia also
reported in March that Artur Sargasyan lost his passport number
AF0599780 that was replaced, and yet the same passport number had
been approved as valid by the NSIS, according to Ndathi's evidence.
Ndathi's mitigation was that he would have declared the permit void,
arrested, prosecuted and later deported the alleged brothers had the
fraud been exposed. He agreed with Assisting Counsel Warui Mungai
that the entry permits were never cancelled despite the publicity
surrounding their activities.
"They were only cancelled on June 9, 2006, the day they were deported
and that means they were valid until that date," said Ndathi.
Interpol Armenia first reported the criminal dealings of the two
foreigners to their Kenyan counterparts on March 18, 2006. Artur,
whose real identity remains a mystery, stole the passport from Artur
Margaryan who still works in Yerevan as a tax collector.
Ndathi admitted that the passport his officers received from
Margaryan was the one Armenian police had said was lost and
cancelled. He confirmed that the department solely depended on the
documents presented by the Armenians and NSIS's approval.
Commission chairman Shedrach Kiruki was keen to know from the witness
why he never saw anything peculiar in the Armenians despite the
hullabaloo about them.
"My lords, I didn't see anything peculiar and it is only now that we
are seeing that the documents given to us were fake," replied Ndathi.
Potential threats to local security
The NSIS is responsible for identifying potential threats to local
security and advising the President on action to be taken. It also
carries out investigations for security clearance of persons with
access to sensitive information.
NSIS is tasked with advising the Government of any security threats,
and taking steps towards protecting the country and its people.
NSIS, formerly known as the Special Branch, was created in 1952 and
operated under the Commissioner of Police. It acted as a secret
intelligence unit for the colonial government during the Mau Mau
uprising.
In 1963, the Special Branch was delinked from the police and it was
not until 1969 that a presidential charter defined its functions. It
was later transformed into the Directorate of Security Intelligence
through a presidential charter in 1986.
The institution became infamous at the peak of the one-party rule in
the 1980s. Its agents were used in holding and torturing individuals
who were perceived to be anti-government. After local and
international outcry, NSIS was created in January 1999, with the
enactment of the National Security Intelligence Service Act.
Brig (Rtd) Wilson Boinett was appointed NSIS Director-General in 1999
and it was during his tenure that the outfit transformed itself into
a professionally run intelligence service. The current head of NSIS
is a military officer, Michael Gichangi.