17 torture victims seek State compensation

Torture survivors said to belong to the February Eighteen Revolutionary Army (Fera) are now seeking compensation of an unspecified amount from the Government almost two decades later. The 17 people claim they were wrongfully arrested and incarcerated on suspicion of being members of the Fera movement which was formed by the late Brigadier John Odongo and Joseph Wangamati.

One of the petitioners, Job Wanyanja, 49, told the court that his rights were grossly violated by the special branch police officers and prison warders, adding that he was arrested at his home in Bungoma town on February 25, 1995 and taken to Bungoma Police Station.

He said they were blind folded, bundled into a waiting police car and driven to Kakamega Police Station where they were kept in underground police cells for three days without food or any contact with their families. Wanyanja said he was held in a solitary cell where he was tortured to force him to confess he belonged to Fera, adding that he was later taken to Naivasha GK Prison detention block, while blindfolded, where he was further tortured.

“He underwent intensive torture for 40 days by being put in a cell full of mosquitoes, immersed in cold water and made to stand for days, subjected to electric shocks and loud fan sound, mock shooting, making him watch others being tortured...,” his lawyer Gitau Mwara said.