Police on spot over custody deaths

By JOE KIARIE

Police reforms have now been put under the spotlight as cases of mysterious deaths of civilians in State custody continue to unfold.

Families of police brutality victims have also complained of officers tampering with evidence and frustrating investigations, reviving debate over the integrity of the force to investigate itself.

Cases of personal belongings of suspects going missing after they are booked into police stations are also being increasingly reported, with the police being the main suspects behind the theft.

Only last Saturday, Martin Kamau was laid to rest in Kariua Village in Kandara, Murang’a County. A witness said it took just one brutal swipe of a police baton, with a metal bolt fixed to its tip, to send the 26-year-old to an early grave.

Kamau’s mourning father, Daniel Miring’u, explains that his son was arrested alongside a colleague, Anthony Munga, while walking along Uganda Road in Eldoret on June 20.

They are said to have been arrested by two plain-clothes police officers, one of whom is said to have struck the deceased on the head when he inquired why he was being arrested.

The two were later handcuffed and taken to Eldoret Police Station. With a swelling to the left side of the head as a result of the baton strike, Kamau is said to have complained of a serious headache while being booked at the police counter, only to pass out minutes later.

He was nonetheless booked under OB number 8/21/6/2012 and charged with being drunk and resisting arrest.

“The officers in charge claimed that he was faking injury and proceeded to drag him into the cell unconscious. He was locked up with his friend in a cell overnight. Come morning, his colleague was taken to court, leaving the unconscious Kamau in the cell,” Miring’u narrates.

He says his son was later the same day found dumped near the casualty wing on the compound of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, with doctors initially labeling him an “unknown African male”.

Kamau, a bulldozer operator in a Kericho-based construction farm, underwent a diagnostic evaluation and was found to have suffered massive bleeding in his brain. An emergency head surgery to save his life provide futile as he succumbed to the injuries on July 4.

A postmortem report shows that Kamau died as a result of a head injury due to blunt force trauma. It notes that he suffered external hemorrhage due to a massive bone defect to the left side of the skull.

And despite being arrested for being drunk, the family of the deceased has stated that their son was neither a drunkard nor a smoker, a claim confirmed by medical tests.

Miring’u said the OCS in charge of the station visited Kamau in hospital on July 3 and apologised for the incident.

“Aliniambia pole sana na tunaomba kijana apone (he comforted me and wished my son quick recovery). At 8pm the same day, two plainclothes officers visited the ward and only said ni huyu (he is the one) and left. Some other officers came in at 10pm but never said a word,” he recounts.

He says the deputy OCS had earlier expressed his shock that a suspect booked at the station was in hospital with no police officers guarding him. But he says his son was never charged with any offence and that no police officers were ever brought to guard him.

In what he suspects was a move to cover up the case, the Nairobi businessman says he was shocked that when Kamau finally died, a police officer attached to the Eldoret Police Station instantly took the body to the mortuary and had it wrongly registered.

“We found the body missing and went to the mortuary where the clerk told us the body had been delivered by an unknown person. After informing her that I had been at my son’s bedside for the past 13 days, she told me something was strange as it is the mortuary attendant who normally takes bodies of patients who die in the wards to the morgue,” he states.

He even claims that officers at the station also suspiciously booked Kamau afresh under OB number 78/21/6/12, a move he believes was meant to alter facts.

The officer who fatally struck Kamau, said to be nicknamed Kasee, is said to be dreaded in Eldoret town where he always moves armed with a club with a metal bolt at the tip and a whip.

Grippingly, Kamau’s personal belongings that were booked at the OB have also gone missing. “His brand new pair of Sahara shoes, a wallet containing Sh1,500 and a Nokia mobile phone have gone missing and only his ID card and tractor keys were recovered. The police are saying they are still looking for the lost property,” Miring’u reveals.

Incidentally, Kamau’s pal Munga, who was to be the chief witness in the case, died in a head on lorry collision in Narok last Wednesday night. He was the only casualty in the accident and was traveling from Kericho to Nairobi to record a statement on Kamau’s death with the Independent Medico-Legal Unit.

Efforts by The Standard On Saturday to reach the Eldoret OCPD Erastus Muthamia for a comment on the Kamau’s death were futile as he said he was busy in a meeting and refused to pick subsequent calls.

The young man’s death has come as the mystery surrounding the death of Alexander Monson, a Briton who died hours after being arrested and detained at Diani Police Station at the Kenyan coast last May, deepened.

The 28-year-old son of Lord Nicholas Monson, a British aristocrat, was booked into the cells for possession of narcotic drugs. Hours later, he was rushed to Palm Beach Hospital in critical condition and died while undergoing treatment, with his relatives initially told by authorities that he died from a drugs overdose.

But postmortem reports from both the Government and family doctor were to later reveal that the former London City University student died due to a head injury caused by a blunt blow to the skull.

The official report on the death submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) only added to the mystery surrounding the death.

Amid widespread claims that the police assaulted Monson while in custody, the report admits he indeed died due to a blow to his head but clears all police officers involved in the case of any wrongdoing.

“Our investigations could not specifically establish how and where the said injury was sustained, when it was sustained and who may have inflicted the injury,” it reads, noting that the police never tortured or assaulted Monson.

The report, prepared by Mohamed Amin, the CID Director of Investigations, proposes a public inquest as the best means to establish the circumstances surrounding the death.

But in what clearly puts to question the ability of the police to investigate cases against their own, Monson’s family continues to protest at being locked out of the investigations. According to family lawyer Nishit Maru, the police conducted the investigations secretly, making the entire process questionable. The lawyer also complains that the CID report is full of contradictions.

“In the report there are gestures of falsehoods propagated in a fashion represented as the truth. All these are deliberate moves to taint evidence,” he told The Standard On Saturday.

The lawyer also notes that the family is yet to see witness statements of those who spent the night with the deceased in the cells and that they learnt that Monson’s personal belongings had gone missing while in custody and two people arrested and charged with the crime via the police report.

But Maru affirms that the buck stops with the Government and that Monson’s family will not relent until their son’s killers are brought to book.

“The police are the ones who incarcerated him and so every single responsibility lies with them. Our motive is very clear; all we want is justice for Alexander,” he states.

As the Monsons push for justice for their son, the family of yet another high-profile victim to die in police custody is protesting at what they refer to as a miscarriage of justice.

In August last year, Mr John Muturi Kariuki, then the Dean of Studies at Loreto Kiambu Girls’ High School, died after being reportedly brutalised by police officers after he was detained at the Kiambu Police Station.

Police arrested the deceased on allegations that he was drunk and disorderly. Muturi, 45, was released the following day looking sickly and with no charges preferred against him.

He was immediately treated at Kiambu District Hospital and later referred to Kenyatta National Hospital where he died while undergoing an operation. He is said to have suffered a rupture in his lower abdomen and had serious injuries to his stomach, injury consistent with torture.

Key mysteries in the teacher’s death include the circumstances surrounding his arrest, what transpired when he was in custody, why he was not charged, and why police never took him to hospital after they realised he was unwell. But then Internal Security Assistant minister, the late Orwa Ojode, said no police officer will be charged with murder since there was no evidence that the teacher was killed by the police. Instead, it was an inmate, Mr Miseyeki ole Mollel, who was later arraigned in court and charged with Muturi’s murder.

Lawyer Gathii Irungu, who is representing the deceased’s family in the case says he believes the police were chiefly responsible for Muturi’s death and claims the wrong party could have been taken to court.

“Police are the investigators and cannot investigate themselves. They are also notorious for protecting each other and manufacturing evidence, especially in cases of extra-judicial killings,” states the lawyer.

Kiambu Knut secretary general Clement Gicharu, who led protests against the police when Muturi died, insists that justice is yet to be done and says something has to be done to wholly transform the police force.

“The several reported deaths in police cells could just be an eye-opener to the rot within our police force. We must ensure that things are done the right way and that the impunity within the force is brought to an end,” he states.