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Coming to Scotland… church at centre of child-smuggling scandal
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More articles on this topic: Gilbert Deya MinistriesGILBERT Deya has had a busy week spreading the word. The millionaire African preacher has been in Belfast, then Glasgow, where he plans to set up a branch of his ministry, and is now back at his ramshackle warehouse in south-east London, leading services.
Wherever he goes, he insists that people are meeting the real Archbishop Deya, a God-fearing evangelist who has spent most of his life helping others. He is not a man who trafficks in babies.
Deya is the so-called “miracle baby” preacher who claims to bring fruit to the wombs of post-menopausal and infertile women through simple prayer. But authorities in Kenya believe the babies were, in fact, kidnapped from a maternity hospital in Nairobi.
In recent days, the row has deepened amid reports that he was in hiding in Scotland and had found legal representation here to contest arrest warrant moves to have him returned to the African country.
But, back at the headquarters of Gilbert Deya Ministries, one of Britain’s fastest-growing evangelical churches, the cleric at the centre of child-trafficking allegations declared he was ready to face his accusers.
To date, the former Pepe jeans salesman has been charged with one offence – stealing a baby from a maternity hospital in Kenya on 5 February this year. In itself, it is serious enough. According to Kenyan police, it is just the tip of the iceberg. They suspect him of being involved in a child-trafficking racket that spans five countries: Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Britain.
The clinic at the heart of Deya’s “miracle baby” scheme, the run-down Mama Lucy Maternity Hospital in Kenya where his “mothers-to-be” travel from Britain and elsewhere to give birth, has been shut down. Another, the Pimwani Maternity Hospital, on the outskirts of Nairobi, the biggest and one of the poorest hospitals in East Africa, and the one from where Deya is alleged to have stolen a baby, is also being investigated after claims of corruption, neglect and even murder.
In Britain, Scotland Yard and the Home Office also have the preacher in their sights after allegations about his activities made in a BBC documentary. He also faces an investigation by the Charities Commission. Any day now, Kenya’s attorney-general is expected to sign an international warrant for his arrest, based on the offence for which he has been charged.
But as the day of his arrest approaches, Deya, whose wife, Mary Juma, has also been charged with stealing a child in Kenya, told The Scotsman that he was confident he would be found not guilty of all charges. They were but a distraction from his real work, he said, which was spreading the word of God.
And he rejected reports that he had gone to ground in Scotland. “Why should I run away to Scotland? It is part of Britain,” he said. “I am at liberty to go wherever I want, nobody can control what I do.”
He said that, in the past few days, he had spent time preaching in “many churches” in Belfast, and also spent some time with his Scottish lawyer, Aamer Anwar, in Glasgow.
Deya, 52, insists he has a cast-iron alibi for the charge against him. He is accused of stealing and harbouring a baby from Ms Elizabeth Njeri at the Pumwani Maternity Hospital. The charge sheet further states that he harboured the child, knowing it had been stolen.
He said that, on that day, he was not in Kenya but in the UK, and would cite immigration records at Jomo Kenyatta and Heathrow airports as evidence of his claim. “I went to Kenya on 6 January and my passport was rubber-stamped. I left on 16 January.”
Deya, who said he counted Kenya’s previous president, Daniel arap Moi, among his congregation, said the allegations against him were a plot by the Kenyan authorities to destroy him. “The Kenyan people are jealous and want to do a character assassination on my ministry. I was so close to the previous president, Moi. If you look at my website you will see pictures.”
On his website, www.deyaministries .com, there are photographs of Deya meeting Mr Moi, as well as him meeting the Queen and Prince Philip in 2002. Buckingham Palace has said it was “unfortunate” if Deya suggested he had any link to the Queen.
Gilbert Deya Ministries has 14 branches in the UK, with five more planned for Edinburgh, Glasgow, Watford, Leicester and Wales. He is a millionaire who has three homes, a private jet and an armour-plated Mercedes. He has just bought the building that houses his London HQ for £1 million.
The two-storey warehouse, sandwiched between a gas works and a railway line, just a stone’s throw from Millwall Football Club, seems an unlikely place for miracles. Yet it is here, in South Bermondsey, that Deya works his magic through the Lord, healing the sick, casting out devils and – most questionably – making infertile or post-menopausal women pregnant.
Deya claimed that the baby he is alleged to have stolen was his own, Naomi Deya, one of twins born to his wife on 20 January this year. “The other twin, Jerimiah, died in July and we buried him in Langata cemetery in Nairobi,” he said. When asked why the DNA of the baby did not match that of his wife, he said this was all part of the Kenyan plot to destroy him. “This is propaganda, the government is against me. I cannot trust them. The DNA test ought to be done in London. It needs to be done with my wife, myself and Jerimiah.”
He said he was more than willing to take part in DNA tests, as long as they were carried out in Britain. But when asked what would happen if the DNA did not match, he quickly changed his tune. “DNA is what the world, not God, believes in. If it matches or doesn’t match, it’s the same.”
In previous conversations, he has said he is not surprised that the DNA of many of the babies don’t match the mothers because they are miracles.
“Let the learned in science and technology investigate,” he said. “I’m neither a magician nor a witchdoctor, just a religious man who is very effective.”
He uses a similar argument when asked why, before they travel to Kenya, the mothers-to-be fail pregnancy tests and their pregnancies do not show up on scans.
“It is a miracle, and miracles cannot be explained. It is nothing to do with me. I pray and their wombs are coming big and they are pregnant. They can question the Bible that believes in miracles, they can question God who performs them, but don’t question me. To me my work is fulfilling the Bible. The Bible says: ‘Go and cast out devils.’ Mark 15:16, Chapter 10. I cast out devils and, through deliverance, women become pregnant.”
Deya claims he is innocent of all allegations and will sue anyone who says otherwise. Furthermore, he says his life would be in danger if he were extradited to Kenya. He alleged that his mother, Monica nono Deya, had gone missing, that his wife was threatened with rape in police custody – all symptomatic of the plot against him, he said.
“I’m more than innocent,” he said, “I have only done spiritual work, I would never be involved in anything which is outside the will of God. We are taking the case against them, we are suing the BBC for fabricating lies against my ministry, we will sue the Kenyan agencies, and I will sue you, too, if you print fabrications against me.”
He claims that he cannot get a fair trial in Kenya, one of the key points in the case that human rights lawyer Mr Anwar is building against any extradition order.
Mr Anwar pointed to a recent report on Kenya, showing 50 per cent of the judiciary to be corrupt, and to what he said was prejudicial reporting on the case. “In that environment, I don’t think he would receive a fair trial,” he said.
In a twist to an already extraordinary story, it has emerged that the chief investigating officer, whom Deya says told him that the charges against him would be dropped, was shot dead at his house last month.
Deya said: “It is very strange that the police officer who investigated the case, and was going to drop the charges, was murdered by thugs.”
Back in Kenya, the investigation continues. News filters through of breakthroughs – allegedly linking the babies to couples who have lost their children. One of the children which Mrs Odera claimed to have borne reportedly ran up to his real parents, from Meru, Kenya, after recognising them. The three are now being DNA tested.
In the midst of this, however, Deya remains resolutely defiant.
“My accusers have changed their story,” he said. “If I have trafficked babies, where are these babies, where are the people who bought them? Where is the evidence?”
When asked what effect the negative publicity had had on his flock, he laughed, for the first time during the interview. “It has increased my congregation. We have 36,000 members. Even lapsed members have come back. I don’t talk to them about these things, they know I am innocent. God knows the truth.”
Delivery formats for “Scotsman.com News”
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