Lawyers demand safety guarantees after two advocates killed

LSK resident Charles Kanjama. [Courtesy]

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has demanded urgent security guarantees for advocates after two lawyers died within 48 hours of each other, President Charles Kanjama has said.

Advocate Esther Wairimu Keige, manager of legal services at the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), was found dead on Monday night, nearly a month after she went missing in Juja.

Advocate Edward Muthee Kariuki was found murdered outside his Athi River home on July 5, days before Keige's body was discovered.

"Immediate security interventions and institutional protection for advocates serving in public institutions and regulatory bodies whose work exposes them to threats from criminal syndicates, corrupt networks and other unlawful actors," said Kanjama in a press conference on Wednesday, July 8.

The LSK boss said the two deaths were not a coincidence and amounted to an attack on the legal profession and the rule of law.

He called on security agencies to devise measures protecting lawyers exposed to threats, intimidation or violence through their work.

Kanjama said the deaths sent a chilling warning to lawyers countrywide and raised questions about the security of people entrusted with defending public interest.

The society wants the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and other agencies to set up a multi-agency team to probe the two deaths.

It also wants a forensic audit of land acquisition, leasing and alienation matters handled by the KFS legal department, where Keige worked, to establish whether her death was connected to her job and identify anyone who may have benefited.

Kanjama said LSK's Lawyer-Police Liaison Committee had engaged both families and would keep following up on the investigations.

The society also wants prosecutors and detectives to provide regular updates on arrests and prosecutions arising from the two cases.

To honour Keige and Kariuki, Kanjama called on lawyers nationwide to join a march for justice on Friday, dressed formally and wearing purple ribbons.

The procession is set to move from Milimani Law Courts to the National Police Service headquarters, where LSK plans to hand a petition to the Inspector-General of Police demanding urgent action on advocates' safety and speedy investigation of the murders.

He urged other Kenyans, including civil society groups, to join the march in a show that violence against officers of the court has no place in a constitutional democracy.