DPP must urgently address police killings

A few days before Christmas, Cariltom Maina  was gunned down by the police in Kibera.

Carliton had just flown back to the country on Wednesday, December 19, from London where he was studying at Leeds University.

Two days later, he was dead.

Police insist that Carliton was a member of an armed gang that was terrorizing his estate. His parents and friends say he was a young man with a bright future that was cut short by police bullets.

Whether or not Carliton was a criminal, we will never get to know. What we know is that he joined the long list of young men and women felled by police bullets.

There is a reason why we have a judicial system. The main one is  that every Kenyan has the right to be heard; that every Kenyan is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

It is dangerous when the police act as judge and executioner.  It is even more so when these men and women now live among us.

The office of the Director of public Prosecution must therefore take these killings as a challenge to our justice system.

DPP Nordin Haji must step in and ensure that justice is served.  He must crack the whip and assure Kenyans that ours is not a police state, or wild West where trigger happy police call the shots.

Even the most dangerous criminal has some basic rights. Chief among this is the right to a fair trial. Anything short of this is a police state.