Death and anguish after Garissa police operation

By NYAMBEGA GISESA

Ol Donyo Sabuk, which translates into “big mountain” in the Maa language, is an area adorned with lots of untamed beauty.

The Kikuyu also call the mountain Kea-Njahe, meaning “mountain of the big rain.” The area is called Kilimambogo, derived from the name of the mountain’s highest peak.

It was on this vast land, the former home to the legendry Lord William Northrop Macmillan, a decorated American soldier knighted by the King of England, even though he was not British, where two bodies were discovered in April.

The two decomposed bodies could not have raised any eyebrows. In any case, it was not the first time a body was being discovered at the river cutting through Kilimambogo. But this was a unique scene. Police had seen marks of torture on one of the bodies. The body that had bruises on the hands and legs was that of Ibrahim Mohammed, 25, who doctors say was in good health with a normal cardiovascular system, normal kidney, ureter, urinary bladder, spleen and brain. Days before his body was discovered about 180km from his home, locals and relatives knew that the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) officers picked Mohammed from his house in Garissa.

New concerns

Mohammed’s death has raised new concerns about ATPU’s possible clandestine activities. ATPU is a team of Kenya’s specially trained officers hunting down suspected terrorists who are being blamed for extra-judicial killings and disappearances.

In this part of our Investigative Series, Cops Gone Wild, we use the case of Mohammed’s death to highlight how the global “war on terror” has legalised a culture of impunity among Kenyan police. Mohammed was arrested in April during an ongoing police operation aimed at finding those responsible for the recent incidents of insecurity in Garissa town.

The operation, carried out by the GSU and members of the Rapid Deployment Unit and Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, caused panic in the town with many residents abandoning their homes to settle on the outskirts of the town. Mohammed was one of those arrested in the Garissa security swoop. April 18 is listed as the day of Mohammed’s death with the entry of his place of death indicated as unknown.

His father Mohammed Ali and cousin Abdi Shukri identified his body. “When I looked at my son’s body, I almost collapsed,” his father said. Dr Eric Thuo, a forensic expert, who first examined the body, said it had “multiple bruises on the back, buttocks, legs and shoulders.”

A few days later, pathologist Dr Peter Ndegwa confirmed Dr Thuo’s worries during a post-mortem examination conducted on April 26 at the Thika District Hospital Mortuary. Dr Ndegwa said external findings of the body included being “cyanosed, with washer-woman effects on the hands and feet and with multiple bruises at the back, the buttocks, lower legs and shoulders.”

The three external findings of the body point to one thing — torture.

‘Cyanosed’ is a medical term for having a bluish discolouration of the skin, fingernails, and mucous membranes caused by a deficiency of oxygen in the blood. Although the pathologist ruled the cause of his death to be consistent with drowning, Dr Ndegwa noted: “The circumstances of his death are hazy and need to be investigated to come up with the manner of death.”

 

 Washer-women effect

“The washer-woman effects that literally comes from the effect and appearance of hands when one over-washes clothes is a characteristic drowning sign while the multiple bruises reflect on signs of torture most likely through whipping,” Dr Thuo explains. The circumstances under which Mohammed died are yet to be investigated, but survivors of the ordeal that they were subjected to have opened up to our team. One of them is Dahir Abdul Wahab, 21, and a madrassa student from Garissa town.

“I remember on the morning of April 15, at around 4am while asleep, people believed to be police officers broke into my house in Bulasuna, Garissa,” he narrates. “They were not in police uniform, though they carried guns. They immediately ordered us to get out of the house, blindfolded us, and handcuffed us on both hands and legs.” The victims were then put in a vehicle and driven for about one hour on a rough road to an unknown destination.

“When we arrived at the destination, they started beating us,” he narrates. “We were made to lie on our bellies and beaten senselessly with rungus and whips. They also slapped and kicked us.”

During the torture, the police interrogated them on their tribes, residences and whether they were involved in Al Shabaab activities. They were ordered to reveal the names of the people responsible for killing civilians and army officers in Garissa town.

“The police were beating us in intervals. Our interrogators were speaking Somali and English,” he says. “Our place of interrogation was somewhere open where we could hear car movements in the open.” Wahab recalls how Abdi Raham, his schoolmate, who he had lived together with for the last three years was breathing heavily.

“He was groaning a lot than the rest of us and at some point he started vomiting.” At about 4.30pm, they were taken to Garissa Police Station. “At some point, the interrogators pulled my testicles and threatened to cut them,” Wahab recalls.

When the blindfolds were removed, he discovered that they were eight of them. He didn’t see Abdi Raham in the group despite having heard his voice during the torture ordeal. The group was released an hour later. “Two of us could not walk and the police used their vehicle to take us to our homes.”

Wahab says that he could not walk because he was suffering from severe lower abdominal, scrotal and thigh pains. The wounds on his hands and back were bleeding.

When he sought medical attention from a hospital in Garissa, the X-rays done revealed no broken bones but an abdominal scan showed that he had some bleeding in his internal organs. Another victim of the torture, Abdi Wali says that he was beaten with different weapons and also suffered psychological torture.

Like in most cases of police torture, their arrest was not booked in the Police Occurrence Book.

Whereas Wahab is happy to be alive (Wahab’s lawyer, Mohammed Khulo, has filed the matter in court), that is not the case for some of the people he was arrested with.

Two families told The Standard On Sunday that two of their members are still missing. One of them is that of Abdirahman Ismail Hassan, a Marhan Somali madrassa, a Form Four student aged 21.

“Since my brother was picked from home on April 14, I have never seen him,” Hassan’s sister Maryan Ismail said.