Nairobi Lawyer Abducted by Armed, Masked Men Had Complained of Police, NIS Intimidation Over Role as Witness

Ahmedsadak Abdi Abshir who was abducted by armed men in the early hours of Sunday, 1 November, had allegedly lodged a formal complaint accusing anti-terror police and intelligence officers.

The Nairobi lawyer accused the officers of harassing him to withdraw from a criminal case.

Ahmedsadak Abdi Abshir was abducted along Muchai Road, off Ngong Road. His whereabouts remain unknown, and the circumstances of the abduction and the identities of those involved are unclear.

His family has gone to the High Court to compel the State to produce him.

CCTV footage that has surfaced on social media shows several men in what appeared to be military-style tactical gear and bulletproof vests chasing the advocate as he tried to flee.

They caught up with him, forced him to the ground and restrained him. A black vehicle then pulled up, and he was dragged inside before it drove off.

According to court documents, he was last seen at about 4am.

The armed men made him kneel, blindfolded him before taking him away in a black Toyota Land Cruiser Prado TX.

His white Toyota Premio, registration KDL 356C, was later found abandoned along Muchai Road and towed to Kilimani Police Station.

His brother, Zakaria Abshir, has filed an urgent habeas corpus application at the Milimani High Court asking the judges to compel security agencies to produce the advocate and explain his disappearance.

In a supporting affidavit, Zakaria recounted what members of the public allegedly told investigators.

He said witnesses reported that two vehicles, a black Prado TX and a black double-cabin vehicle, chased the lawyer's car before it veered into a ditch.

"The members of the public further informed the investigating officer that they saw the armed individuals arrest the occupant of the white motor vehicle and forcefully drag him into the Land Cruiser TX," he stated.

The family said Abshir's mobile phones have been switched off since the incident, and they have filed a missing person report at Kilimani Police Station under OB number 55/1/11/2026.

The application also raises questions about a possible link between his disappearance and a criminal case at the Makadara Law Courts in which he is a witness.

A complaint letter that appears to be annexed to the court filings shows Abshir had already raised the alarm with the authorities. It is dated 25 October 2025 and was written by his advocates, Mugeria, Lempa & Kariuki Advocates LLP, to Director of Criminal Investigations Amin Mohamed Ibrahim.

It is stamped as received by the DCI, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority on 27 October 2025.

The letter accused the ATPU Nairobi Detachment of being "weaponised" to defeat the ends of justice.

It said Abshir was arrested on 9 October 2025 and another client, Ahmed Abdi Hassan, on 24 October 2025, by ATPU officers accompanied by two National Intelligence Service officers named as Siyad Mohamed and Abdirahman.

The arrests were reportedly linked to abduction allegations made by a man named Ahmed Ali Mohamed.

The letter claimed the NIS officers led the first arrest while posing as estate management employees, vandalised the house and intimidated his family, and posed as Nairobi City County officers during the second arrest.

It also alleged that Siyad Mohamed told the clients at the ATPU offices in Upper Hill to withdraw Makadara criminal case MCCR E2910 of 2025.

In that case, Hassan is the complainant, Abshir is the key witness and Ahmed Ali Mohamed is the accused.

In his own supporting affidavit in the Makadara case, in which Ahmed Ali Mohamed is charged with obtaining goods by false pretences, Abshir swore that he was interrogated harshly at ATPU headquarters and told to persuade the accused to withdraw the charges before 28 October 2025.

He said the officers threatened to fabricate charges, including terrorism-related ones, and to detain him so that he could not attend court.

He added that the threats were accompanied by insults in Somali.

He said he was released on 11 October 2025 with a P52 form, then re-arrested at the ATPU gate.

On 13 October he was arraigned at Kahawa Law Courts, where an investigating officer, identified as a Mr Some, sought custodial orders.

According to the affidavit, the prosecutor declined to approve the application and he was released unconditionally later that day.

Abshir said he believed a plan had been hatched to use ATPU to intimidate him into withdrawing the matter, and he asked the court to act against the people he named for witness intimidation.

The allegations in the letter and affidavit are his own and have not been tested in court. The documents contain no response from the ATPU, the NIS or the DCI, and nothing in them links those agencies to the abduction.

The identities of the abductors and where Abshir is being held remain unknown.