Human rights body raises alarm on extrajudicial killings as death toll hits 109

Lawyers and lobby groups during a peaceful procession along Harambee Avenue in Nairobi over increased extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the country, on November 10, 2021. [David Njaaga, Standard]

A human rights body has claimed 109 people have lost their lives to torture and extra-judicial killings this year.

The Independent Medico-Legal Unit (Imlu) disclosed that it has documented the violations committed between January and June.

Imlu programme officer, Livingstone Nyando, said 92 of the victims were male and the rest females.

Nyando said annually they receive hundreds of reports related to extra-judicial killings in which security agents are implicated.

"To end the killings, the suspects should be taken to court and follow the due process provided in the law," said Nyando.

Nyando was addressing youth leaders in Murang'a County where he added that during the same time last year, the organisation had processed 79 cases related to extra-judicial killing.

He said the organisation's achievements include the conviction of three police officers and their informer suspected of the murder of human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri six years ago.

The four suspects; police officers Fredrick Leliman, Stephen Cheburet and Sylvia Wanjiku, and civilian Peter Ngugi, were accused of abducting the three on their way from Mavoko Law Courts and later killing them.

The High Court found them guilty of murder on July 22 this year.