The High Court in Kenya has denied bail to televangelist Gilbert Deya of the ‘miracle babies’ infamy, who is facing five child abduction and trafficking charges.
Mr. Deya, who was arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police on December 13, 2006, and deported from the United Kingdom on Friday August 4.
Mr. Deya was handed over to the Kenyan authorities following accusations that he coordinated the trafficking of the children, who his church would later present as ‘miracles’ for barren mothers. Police allege that Deya stole the five children between May 1999 and December 2004 from Pumwani Hospital to facilitate his ‘miracle babies’ project.
Earlier in 2005, Mr. Deya’s wife Mary Deya was handed a three-year jail term after she was found guilty of stealing a child from the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Mary falsely claimed that the baby was hers, but it was later confirmed that she had stolen it.
Deya was ordained by the United Evangelical Church of Kenya and styles himself ‘Archbishop’. He was an evangelist in Kenya in the late 1980s to early 1990s, but moved to the UK, establishing Gilbert Deya Ministries in 1997.
