Sudi involved in second drama at airport as officials scan his luggage
Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi and two foreigners were on Wednesday morning briefly detained at the Wilson Airport after officials insisted on scanning their luggage.
Sudi was accompanied by controversial Tanzanian politician and former minister for Natural Resources Lazarus Nyalandu and a British businessman, Michael Spencer.
Spencer is a politician and chairman of the Intercapital Private Group Ltd. A passenger manifest seen by People Daily indicates trio left Eldoret for Nairobi on Wednesday at 10am aboard a Pilatus PC-12 private jet tail number 5Y SRI belonging to Sirai Air but operated by East African Air Charters Limited.
The plane had flown from Nairobi to Eldoret on Tuesday afternoon and arrived at the airport at about 4pm.
It was not immediately established where the visitors were coming from, their kind of engagement and people they had met.
Other sources, however, said the three had held a private meeting with a senior State official over an undisclosed deal.
It is, however, said Sudi refused to follow airport guidelines insisting that his entourage passes through the VIP lounge instead of using the domestic arrivals section used by ordinary passengers.
Officials at the airport stood their ground but Sudi persisted leading to a standoff.
Sudi finally agreed to go through the normal arrival and screening procedures after realising he was running late for Parliament.
Wednesday’s incident is the second after Sudi was in August last year engaged in an almost similar fracas at the same airport when Turkish businessman Harun Aydin was arrested and deported over money-laundering links and illegal movement into and out of Kenya.
Aydin, who was traveling from Uganda at the time, was part of Deputy President William Ruto’s entourage that was days earlier supposed to fly to Entebbe only for the DP to be stopped from boarding a plane at Wilson Airport.
Senior security officials then said had Ruto failed to seek President’s clearance to travel as required by protocol.
Nyalandu was in November 2020 blocked from entering Kenya by the Tanzanian Government through the Namanga border crossing point on suspicion that he was seeking asylum.
