Police are to blame for unsolved cases, says KNHCR

By DANN OKOTH

KENYA: A Government human rights body has decried what it terms police contempt of due process, disregard of human rights and impunity in handling unresolved murders.

Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) says many of the cases remain unresolved because of a lack of commitment by State to pursue them.

“There has been a lot of impunity by the investigating arm of Government leaving many of the cases pending,” says Victor Kamau, KNCHR head of complaints and investigations.

He says high profile cases such as those of Mugabe Were, Oscar King’ara, Sheik Shamir Khan, and Virginia Nyakio, among others, are unresolved almost a decade since they were opened.

“Perhaps this impunity is more evident when it comes to the pursuant of cases involving the not-so-prominent Kenyans whose killings or disappearance remain a mystery especially following a spate of extra-judicial killings in 2007,” he says.

According to the commission, the police through its notorious Kwekwe Squad could have been complicit in extra-judicial executions of close to 500 people between June and October 2007 and the bodies deposited in various mortuaries in the country, some left in the wild and others dumped in forests, farms, rivers and dams.

Delivery of judgment

There is also a disturbing trail of uncounted individuals after they found themselves in the hands of the police accused of being adherents of the outlawed Mungiki sect.

Some of people documented as missing or dead by KNCHR since 2007:

Joseph Kimani Ruo was arrested together with Maina Njenga on suspicion of being members of the outlawed Mungiki sect. On June 21, 2007, the two were arraigned at High Court in Nairobi for delivery of judgment of their case. A friend to Ruo recorded a statement with KNCHR and gave an account of what transpired on the day Ruo disappeared.

The witness had attended court on the said date and confirms that Ruo was acquitted of all the charges against him at about noon. As he stepped outside, he met a group of police officers in plainclothes who waylaid him. Kimani then whispered to the eyewitness that one of the officers was from the CID and was known to him as Njoroge. Ruo then informed the eyewitness that he had to go for an urgent meeting with the said police officers and as such, he would have to switch off his mobile phone. Since then, the family has not seen him.

They reported the matter to various police stations with no success.

Macharia Kirubi disappeared on October 18, 2007 after he was reportedly arrested by officers from the Kwekwe anti-Mungiki police squad (said to be a Special Crime Unit mandated to curb the Mungiki movement). His mother stated that she received a telephone call from a relative on that day informing her that her son had been arrested by police at Savanna estate.

The following day, she travelled to Nairobi to see the informer to give her more information about the incident. He told her to look for her son at Buruburu Police Station. She did not find him at the station and therefore embarked on searching in others like Embakasi, Kayole, Makongeni, and CID headquarters.

One of the officers at Makongeni Police Station informed her that the Kwekwe Squad does not book people and advised her to go and inquire from their office behind Integrity Centre.

Her brother in-law visited the office but her son’s name was not appearing in the list. The matter was reported at Kayole Police Station vide OB/51/20/10/07. On November 1, 2007, she reported the matter to Kenya Human Rights.

David Muiruri Muchoki disappeared on November 27, 2007 after he was arrested by three police officers at Lunga Lunga. He hails from Murang’a District, Kamahoha location. According to his business partner, they had gone to Gikomba market to buy shoes for hawking at Lunga Lunga area.

On their way back from Gikomba, and as they were alighting from the matatu, Muchoki was arrested by some three un-uniformed police officers. The business partner called Muchoki’s sister on her mobile phone.

The sister called Muchoki’s wife and the two started following the said officers who were on foot.  According to the sister, the policemen had handcuffed Muchoki and on realising that they were being followed by the relatives, the policemen boarded a matatu that was heading to town.

The two relatives boarded another matatu to follow them. The sister says that they decided to alight at Makongeni Police Station in the belief that the policemen could have taken Muchoki to the nearest station.

Upper front tooth

They checked for Muchoki’s name in the Occurrence Book, but it was not there.

The sister says she positively identified the police officers who arrested her brother as they are notorious officers in the Eastlands area, known to harass members of the public.

She states one of the officers nicknamed ‘Oti’ lives in Makongeni police lines. The other one is commonly known as ‘Foiyo’. He is bald and has a missing upper front teeth.

The third one is known as ‘Masha’ and he walks with a limp. Muchoki is still missing to date.

Joseph Waweru Mbugua disappeared on October 4, 2007 and his bloodstained clothes were later found in a forest in Kiserian, Ngong Division. He worked in Kayole as a housing agent. According to his wife, Waweru left his house in Nderi, Kikuyu for his rural home in Murang’a where he was to pay for some ongoing construction work.

He had Sh15,000. At around 11am, she tried reaching Waweru on phone but it had been switched off. She called the rural home but Waweru had not arrived. The following morning, she went to Murang’a bus terminus in Nairobi where she was told by matatu operators that someone wearing the clothes that she described was arrested by police near the station.

They became worried and began searching for him in police stations, hospitals and mortuaries but could not trace him. The family read in dailies that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights had discovered clothes of people believed to be dead in Kiserian area and went to the commission to confirm if some of the clothes belonged to him.

The family positively identified the clothing as belonging to Waweru.  He had last worn a white jacket with a ‘LOTTO’ label, a brown belt and a pair of dark trousers.