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Court frees activist Mwagodi Mwabili on a Ksh500K personal bond
18th February, 2026 05:17 PM
A Nairobi court has freed a vocal activist, Mwagodi Mwabili, linked with using his X (formerly Twitter) handle to publish about the state leadership, on a personal bond of Ksh500,000.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) serious crime unit had sought to detain him for 7 days to complete its investigations.
In a ruling delivered by Senior Principal Magistrate Teresia Nyangena on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, she stated that he has been in custody for three days without being charged.
Magistrate Nyangena avers that the reason given by the police in their affidavit for delay due to travelling from Nairobi to Mombasa and back to Nairobi is not enough to fail to have charged him.
“I noted that the suspect has been in custody since February 15, 2026, and has been in custody without any investigations going on, nor any other informed charges being brought against him,” Magistrate Nyangena ruled.
“The court has to take into consideration that the accused has already been in custody for over three days and his rights to freedom have been infringed, and so, on balancing the scales of justice, I release the accused on a personal bond of Ksh500,000 with two contact persons,” Magistrate Nyangena ruled.
The court has also ordered that his passport be posted in court and he report to the police every day for seven days at Muthaiga police station till investigations are completed.
According to the court papers, the DCI is investigating Mwabili on a case of publication of false information contrary to section 23 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, among others.
The DCI avers that preliminary investigations have revealed that Mwabili, a vocal activist, has been vocally propagating various propaganda through his social media X account (formerly Twitter).
The DCI adds the activist has been posting malicious, misleading and demeaning information about the state through the X handle TL Elder @mwabilimwagodi; the link https://x.com/mwabilimwaqodl, which belongs to him.
“Through intelligence reports, the respondent (Mwabili) has been observed on diverse dates between January 2 and 8, 2025, publishing malicious, misleading, and demeaning information and derogatory content against state leadership,” the DCI states in the application.
Further, the DCI states that their effort to arrest the activist has been futile since he has been in and out of the country, a move that they interpret as his way to evade arrest.
