Police used undue force, Waki team told

• Officers said to have stormed into homes and shot people.
• Police also accused of committing other criminal acts, including sexual assault.
• 56 out of the 64 people who died in Kisumu had gunshot wounds, says pathologist.

Police stormed homes and workplaces and shot some people during the post-election violence, the Waki Commission was told on Wednesday.

Ms Alice Atieno shows a bullet wound on her face to the Waki Commission in Kisumu on Wednesday. Ms Atieno, who was a security guard, was shot at Manyatta estate at 6pm on December 28. Photo/JACOB OWITI

They also accused the police of committing other criminal acts, including sexual assault.

Two victims recounted how they were shot.

One of them said he was shot as he closed a gate despite the fact that he was wearing a security guard’s uniform.

Government pathologist Margaret Oduor told the commission that 56 out of 64 deaths in Kisumu during the chaos were a result of gunshot wounds.

Dr Oduor said postmortem examinations conducted at the Nyanza Provincial Hospital mortuary indicated that most victims were shot as they fled from the police.

Running away

Dr Oduor said while giving a breakdown of the figures that 30 people were shot from behind, indicating that they were running away from their killers.

The pathologist said 17 people were shot from the front and another nine from the side while eight were burnt beyond recognition.

The postmortem examinations showed that 13 people were shot in the head, six in the abdomen and seven died of wounds inflicted on either the upper or lower limbs.

“By examining the entry wounds, we discovered that the victims were not shot at close range. “It appeared that they were running away from the police because their backs were turned from them,” Dr Oduor said.

She added that during the postmortem examinations, she only managed to recover five bullet heads lodged in the victims’ bodies.

In the rest of the cases, the bullets exited to the other sides of the bodies, she said.

Ms Ellyjoy Githure, a programmes officer with Care-Kenya, told the commission that her organisation had heard testimonies from at least eight witnesses who said they were raped by police officers.

“While the majority of the gender-based violence survivors have not been able to identify their assailants, some told us that they could single out the police and General Service Unit personnel from their dressing and vehicles,” said Ms Githure.

The Law Society of Kenya, (LSK) Western Kenya Chapter, in its report to the commission, said the police and GSU personnel were responsible for four rape cases out of the 29 it documented in the period after the signing of the peace accord.

The society’s representative, Mr Isaac Okero, said because of the actions of the security agents, there was now reluctance among the people to report criminal and rape cases to the police.