Police detectives in the dock as unsolved murder cases pile up

Five days before Christmas last year, Mr Michael Mwangi Macharia was killed by a mob in Thome estate, Nairobi. Mr Macharia’s family owns properties in the estate. There had been a spate of robberies and residents were determined to bring it to an end.

In their pursuit of the criminals, they ran into Mr Macharia. Witnesses say that when he was asked what he was doing, he retorted that he was going about his business.

The mob decided that he was a theft suspect, escorted him to his house in Thome and ransacked it in search of stolen goods.

Having failed to get any, they stripped him naked and trussed him. Right in front of his family, they attacked him using crude weapons.

Witnesses later told the police that a military officer delivered the death blow, slashing Mr Macharia on the neck and killing him instantly.

The matter was reported to Kasarani police station and officers were dispatched to the scene. Detectives escorted the suspected killers to their house and, in at least two of the houses, found blood-stained clothes.

A pastor who had been a part of the crowd had soaked his blood-stained safari boots.

All the pieces of evidence were collected by the police and the suspects put in custody.

They were then detained at Kasarani police station. The following day, the suspects were positively identified by witnesses in an identification parade. Surprisingly, they were all released after the parade was concluded.

The family lawyer who attended the parade said that they were shocked to learn that the suspects had been released despite having been positively identified. Meanwhile, Mr Macharia was buried on December 24, and seven months later, the trail has gone cold.
Sources who did not want to be named reported that the instructions to release the suspects came from a senior Office of the President official down to the officer in charge of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at Kasarani.

The Sunday Nation has learnt that detectives at Kasarani recorded the instructions to release the suspects in which they clearly indicated that the suspects had been positively identified by the witnesses.

It might seem all in a day’s work for the police, but this scenario illustrates the challenges that are afflicting the investigative arm of the police force.

Police stations around the country are sagging under the weight of cases that would easily be solved with proper detective work.Once considered the best in Africa, the CID, now headed by Mr Ndegwa Muhoro, is in the spotlight for failing to crack some high-profile criminal cases that have rocked the country in the recent past.

Persons familiar with the goings-on at the investigative arm of the police who spoke to the Sunday Nation in confidence said it has had to contend with inconsistency in policy, bureaucracy, ethnicity and corruption, which have greatly hindered service delivery.

“Officers are also afraid of transfers to hardship areas if they refuse to cooperate with unscrupulous seniors,” said an officer who could not be named without jeopardising his position.

The latest case concerns the much-publicised death of University of Nairobi student Mercy Keino whose body was found by the roadside near Westlands hours after she had left a party under unclear circumstances.

Critics have pointed fingers at the police for what is perceived as shoddy investigations into the incident. Juja MP William Kabogo, who was at the party, was among the people questioned by police. However, police spokesman Eric Kiraithe has fiercely defended the way the force conducted investigations, saying it was above board.

r Kiraithe says that Vigilance House would work better if it had a budget for a special branch of plain clothes officers who whould blend into civilian life and try to penetrate the underworld.

“We’re the only force in the Commonwealth without a special branch,” Mr Kiraithe told the Sunday Nation.

The Mercy Keino case came hot on the heels of another high-profile incident involving Olympic marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru. The marathoner was alleged to have accidentally fallen to his death in his home in Nyahururu.

Amidst claims by his mother, Ann Wanjiru, that the 24-year-old athletics star was murdered, the CID has yet to give a definite answer as to what really happened, nearly three months after the incident.

A postmortem report pointed to a wound on the back of the Olympian’s head that was apparently inconsistent with a fall from the balcony of his house.
The inefficiency in the force is such that detectives seem to be falling on their own sword.

Tana River CID chief Geoffrey Githu Kahiro was gunned down on July 1.

His killers are yet to be apprehended. The police have also yet to crack the killing of one of their own, Mr Bernard Kimeli, a former commandant of the police training college in Kiganjo.

Mr Kimeli was stabbed to death by unknown men who reportedly gained entry into his home on the morning of April 27 this year.

The motive of the attack remains unknown. In the same month, a Kenya Revenue Authority official Joseph Cheptarus was killed in mysterious circumstances. Mr Cheptarus was leading investigations into gold smuggled into the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Also still mysterious is the bombing of a Kampala-bound bus on December 20 last year. The incident claimed two lives and injured more than 30 passengers.

Similarly, the bombing at Uhuru Park during the constitutional referendum campaigns last year on June 13 which killed six people and left more than 100 injured has yet to be resolved.

On January 20, three officers from the Special Crime Prevention Unit were captured on camera shooting three suspects who had surrendered at point blank range. A team headed by Senior Superitendent of Police John Otieno was formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting.

Nothing has been heard about the matter in public.

A documentary handed to the Sunday Nation by Vigilance House in defence of the performance details some of the challenges the police force faces in the course of its work.

As criminals take advantage of technological advances, methods used by the police to prevent and investigate it remain the old cloak and dagger affair.

Simply put, their methods are no longer in step with modern policing practices. Shortage of equipment and poor pay are among key concerns raised by the Philip Ransley-led commission on police reforms.
There is a crying need to equip the police with modern forensic equipment if officers are to crack high-profile crimes. Besides lack of resources to conduct proper investigations, the police force lacks a forensic lab, finger printing and DNA equipment. Plans to construct a Sh1 billion forensic laboratory evaporated in the heat of the Anglo Leasing scandal. Ideally every police station should have finger printing equipment. But the only finger print machine is at the CID training school.

A former High Court judge who requested not to be named since he still does some work for the government said poor investigations were mainly responsible for the loss of high-profile cases by the state.

“More often than not, they present evidence with glaring loopholes and expect you to convict suspects. It cannot happen that way because I will also be committing an injustice to someone else,” he said.

Although the police force is generally considered one of the most corrupt institutions in the country, officers tend to rank the CID as the most corrupt of all the units.

“Today at CID, cases are handled depending on their monetary worth,” said a senior CID officer who requested anonymity. “Cases which involve high-profile personalities present an opportunity for officers to collect bribes. Likewise those that involve high crimes like drugs and so forth. Such cases are tampered with to suit a suspect’s wishes provided he or she can pay for it.

Even in cases where we have done proper investigations, some of our bosses simply tamper with the cases.”

He cited a murder case in which investigations implicated the wife of a former Cabinet minister from one of the wealthy families in Kenya. “We made recommendations for arrests and prosecution. But for some reason, this was never approved,” he said.
“Ask yourself, where do officers get money suddenly to buy buses and build palatial homes once they join CID?”

Existence of unfettered corruption at the CID is acknowledged by a senior official at Vigilance House.

“The CID is an institution in itself. It functions in most occasions as if it was a separate entity from the police force. Reforming it means dismantling the networks of corruption which means laying off people. This will need a very courageous person and a huge dose of cooperation from the Executive,” he said.

A senior officer also points to the bitter turf wars between former police commissioner Hussein Ali and retired CID boss Joseph Kamau as having contributed greatly to the deterioration of the stature of the CID over the past decade.

“He (Ali) might have been the police chief on paper, but in practical terms, Mr Kamau wielded more influence. For example, Mr Kamau had more access to State House than his boss,” said a senior CID officer who did not wish to be named discussing his former bosses.

“Ali realised that he could not effectively do his job if one of his subordinates had such powers. He moved to cut him down to size, resulting in proxy wars between the regular officers and CID,” said the officer.

One of the moves Ali took was to dismantle some CID units.

And then, the curse of ethnicity which has eaten into Kenya’s social fabric has not spared the force. If anything, it is thought to have afflicted the force the most.

“In certain cases, officers refuse to investigate members of their own ethnic groups or do it poorly,” said a senior officer at Vigilance House.