Kenyan Health Minister Charity Ngilu was released on Friday after spending 10 hours in police custody overnight for allegedly assisting a suspect to escape from police station.
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said Ngilu was released on free bail but ordered to report back at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers later in the day.
"The minister was released and ordered to report back at the CID headquarters this morning," Kiraithe told Xinhua by telephone without elaborating.
Ngilu, who is the first cabinet minister in Kenya's history to spend night in police custody, was arrested after being grilled for several hours on Thursday by police in Nairobi.
The minister had protested against the arrest of a women's rights activist, Anne Njogu, who was arrested along with four others for protesting against plans by the country's lawmakers to award themselves hefty pay rises as a "severance package" when their term comes to an end in December.
Ngilu stormed a police station on Tuesday night where Njogu and three others were being held and freed her, despite resistance from policemen.
But in her statement, the minister denied storming the police station, maintaining she only intervened when she found male police officers forcibly dragging Njogu downstairs as she struggled to change her clothing.
The minister's arrest immediately drew sharp reactions from the opposition lawmakers with leading presidential contenders, Raila Odinga and Musalia Musavadi terming the police action as absurd.
The opposition leaders said a cabinet minister was, under the principle of collective responsibility, not only a symbol of government, but also a representative of the Head of State.
"We want to condemn John Michuki's (Security Minister)'s action in the strongest term possible,"the leaders said in a joint statement.
They said Michuki was retaliating against the minister because she had led a women protest march to his office after he made a derogatory statement.
"We think her life is in serious danger. Nobody is saying why she is being held. We'd like the police commissioner and the minister for internal security to issue statement..why should Ngilu spend the night in police cells?" Odinga said Thursday evening.
The planned severance pay for the 222 lawmakers will cost the country more than 20 million
U.S. dollars and the activists called on the lawmakers to prioritize the plight of the poor many of whom live on a dollar a day instead of looking for campaign funds.
The lawmakers' proposed payments come on top of annual packages of at least 140,000 dollars making them among the best-paid lawmakers in the world.
Their move has drawn condemnations from cross section of Kenyans including ministers who have since urged their colleagues to shelve the bid.
The activists said parliamentary sessions are frequently adjourned because of quorum hitch and only a handful of bills are passed each year and termed as unacceptable the legislators' plan to award themselves generous perks, noting that nearly half of Kenya's population lives below the poverty line.
Source: Xinhua
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