On police convictions, we laud Ipoa, Judiciary and cops who testified

This was no Valentine week for Kenya’s Police Service. The inquest into Baby Pendo, the 6-month-old infant child who suffered the wrath of security forces during the post-election skirmishes in Kisumu decreed that former Kisumu Police Commander and four senior police officers were culpable for Baby Pendo’s death. The Presiding Magistrate also recommended charges against 30 GSU officers who had been involved in the operation in which the baby was clobbered to death. In the same week, former Ruaraka Police Station boss Nahashon Mutua was found guilty of the murder of Martin Koome in 2013 and sentenced to hang. This was one of the most severe sentences ever handed to a police officer for police brutality against civilians.

This case, that took six years to prosecute, is a study on how the police deliberately bungle prosecutions to enable culprits to get away with crime. Not only was the police boss not the subject of the initial charges, a lower ranking cop had been initially charged with the offence and it took the intervention of the Macharia Njeru led Independent Police Oversight Authority (Ipoa) to get the real culprit charged with the crime. But for Ipoa, we all know what would have transpired; there would have been no credible evidence against the wrongly accused cop and the case would have died. Mutua would still be reporting to Ruaraka with absolute impunity.