Man tells court of ordeal in women’s cell

The cells at Nairobi’s Central Police Station have been turned into brothels with women and men sharing lockups and police supplying condoms for a fee.

A remand prisoner, who begged the court to reject police request that he be remanded at the station, claimed the police had also been beaten and tortured him.

“All inmates are locked up together. There are no male cells nor female cells at Central Police Station,” said Mr Martin Kinoti Mkibiti, a suspect facing incitement charges.

Mr Mkibiti bluntly told chief magistrate Esther Maina that men and women were held in a common cell.

Declined offer

“Men are openly invited by police to have good time with women inmates in the cell,” he said, adding “I declined the offer. I did not do it. How could I do that?”.

He said the practice has been made official “with police officers supplying male inmates with condoms and asking them to pay Sh100 for the illicit service.”

Mr Mkibiti surprised everyone by saying, “That is not a police station. It is a sex zone. It is a torture chamber too. Police have drifted this country to the dark colonial age. They beat suspects as if they are not human beings.”

Mr Mkibiti, who gave a harrowing experience, told Ms Maina: “I was shocked when I was asked to sleep with a woman after being beaten thoroughly. We were held together in the same cell with her.”

And as if he was being punished for refusing to engage in the illicit affair, he alleged that he was locked up in another room which looked like a boardroom where he was tortured more.

“The officer commanding Central Police Station came into the room where he directed that I be worked,” he claimed.

The suspect, who is facing an incitement to violence charge, objected to being taken back to Central Police Station for at least two days to help police conclude investigations.

“Please your honour do not direct that I be remanded again in that police station. I will be killed there. See my hands, they are already swollen. My fingers are equally hurt. I can’t hold anything,” he told the magistrate.

He lamented: “The law enforcers have taken back this country to the dark era when suspects were thoroughly thrashed and information milked out of them.”

The suspect requested that he be remanded either in prison or another police station.

Violated rights

He said his fundamental rights and freedom as spelt out in the Constitution had been violated.

He alleged that he was held in a waterlogged cell where he was tortured and urged the magistrate to visit Central Police Station to establish this truth.

Mr Mkibiti made those revelations when prosecutor Onesmus Towett requested that he be remanded at Central Police Station for two days to enable police to complete their investigations.

Superintendent Towett said he would verify the allegations that there were no separate cells for men and women at Central Police Station.

“I will verify those alarming allegations,” he said.

Mr Mkibiti is charged with inciting the public to violence at the Meru bus park along Accra Road in Nairobi on Wednesday.

Police claim the suspect said, “Hawa polisi wamezidi sana, tuwapigeni wanatuumiza sisi wananchi. (These policemen have gone too far. We should beat them up because they are hurting us)”.

He denied the charge.

In her ruling, Ms Maina directed that the suspect be detained in a prison cell.

She also directed that he be released on a cash bail of Sh10,000 until March 19,2012 when the case would be heard.

Separate cells

Lawyer Mbugua Mureithi, who spoke to the Nation later, said the law requires that suspects of the opposite sex be held in separate cells.

“It is an offence against the code of ethics for a police officer to act in any manner which leads to the commission of an offence. Whoever gave a suspect a condom must be punished. It is a criminal offence,” Mr Mureitrhi said.

Article 27 of the Constitution requires everyone to be treated with some dignity.