DIDA
Former Presidential Candidate Mwalimu Mohamed Abduba Dida is serving a seven-year sentence in a US prison.
Dida has been in custody since 18 November 2022, after being found guilty of stalking and intimidating an unidentified person in the Midwestern US state.
The former Presidential Candidate is being held at the Big Muddy Correctional Center in Illinois.
Mwalimu Dida was found guilty on two separate charges reported to have been committed in Mclean County, Illinois.
On the first charge, Dida was found guilty of one count of stalking and one count of transmitting threats to the victim. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
In the second charge, he was found guilty of one count of aggravated stalking and violating a restraining order prohibiting him from approaching or speaking to his victim.
Dida was jailed in July 2021, but the sentence was extended under unclear circumstances and he is scheduled to be released from prison on 3 April 2029.
The former Presidential candidate recently filed a complaint over the alleged violation of his constitutional rights, including the right to practice Islam and to observe the Islamic daily schedule of prayer.
“Plaintiff claims that now at Big Muddy he has been approved as a volunteer imam, but he has only been allowed one Friday prayer.
“He has otherwise been denied prayers before and after sunrise and sunset, and he has been denied three additional prayers,” a legal complaint read in part.
The 50-year-old former teacher vied for the country’s presidency in the 2013 General Election on an Alliance of Real Change party ticket.
Dida ran again in the 2017 General Election, conceding hours before the election was called in favour of then-incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta.
On the campaign trail, Dida hit the headlines again when he refused to receive two police officers assigned to him, demanding 20 security guards instead.
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