By Dann Okoth
Kenya: Motives for assassinations are not always as political as those behind the killing Thomas Joseph Mboya in 1969 and J. M Kariuki almost 38 years ago today.
Which is why the unresolved but separate murders of Muslim cleric Sheik Samir Khan and Virginia Nyakio, wife of former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga stand out.
While Kenya’s history is replete with murders that benefited specific political constituencies, the killing of Khan and Nyakio is different.
One was accused of involvement with terror networks while the other was the wife of a man once locked up for heading Mungiki, a group accused of gruesome killings in Central Kenya. Is it possible Nyakio and Khan were killed because they were inconvenient, and their killers wanted to send out a chilling message?
Criminal justice system
Nearly half a century since the assassination of Mboya and Kariuki, a litany of high profile murder cases lie unresolved in court registries and in police files as poor investigations, lack of forensic technology and an apparent official conspiracy to cover up political murders continue to dog the country’s criminal justice system.
Questions have arisen to as to why the police have not investigated their murders and whether the force had a hand in their deaths.
Khan’s lawyer M. Ahmednasir Abdullahi expressed his frustration at the lack of investigation into the murder by police and a political will to discharge justice to the family of the slain activists.
“I am representing the Khan family in the murder case and I can confirm to you there has been absolutely no investigation into the murder by the police. The file is virtually empty despite numerous leads that could have led the police to Khan’s killers, including eye witnesses who identified the two vehicles which sped away with the pair” he says.
