Police planted drugs on Briton's corpse, says lawyer

Police officers and a mortician planted drugs on the corpse of a British aristocrat, a court heard yesterday.

The aristocrat, Alexander Monson, died in a police cell in Diani, Kwale, on the night of May 19, 2012 after being arrested and detained there for allegedly taking bhang at a club.

His father, Lord Nicholas Monson, believes he was killed through police violence or medical negligence. Dr Ngali Mbuuko, who performed a postmortem on the corpse, concluded Alexander died from a blunt blow in the back of the head. He also found that injury was inflicted on Alexander's scrotum.

Pandya Hospital Mortuary attendant Celestino Ngare testifies during the Inquest into the cause of the death of Alexander Monson a British Tourist, at the Mombasa Court in Mombasa County on Monday 1st February 2016. Alexander was found dead at Diani Police Station in Kwale County in the year 2012. (PHOTO: KELVIN KARANI/ STANDARD)

Yesterday, a lawyer for the Monson family, A B Olaba, accused police and a mortician at Pandya Memorial Hospital Mortuary in Mombasa of planting drugs on Alexander's corpse as it awaited an autopsy in May, 2012. Olaba said the move was aimed at fostering a theory that Alexander died from a drug overdose. "I put it to you that you were part of the scheme which planted the drug in the pockets of Alexander Monson's pair of trousers," said Olaba when cross examining Chelestino Ngari Kamami, a mortician at the hospital.

Olaba told Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Richard Odenyo that the mortician most likely knew that the police had planted the drug on the body but was trying to avoid giving direct answers.

He said Kamami was lying for claiming he had walked out of the mortuary briefly when the pathologist unwrapped the body to work on it.

On Monday, Kamami said he could not remember whether Alexander's body was brought into the mortuary in a pair of trousers or shorts.

When he was shown the photographs of the corpse in trousers, he said he now could remember that detail but added he did not see any drug being removed from the pockets.

Lawyer Yusuf Abubakar, who is also acting for the Monson family, told the inquest that a police officer killed Alexander to stop him from reporting junior policemen to his seniors over his torture. The case was adjourned to Friday.