Police executed 800 men, Truth team told

Police have executed more than 800 people through extra-judicial killings in the last five years.

Between 2007 and 2008, about 500 people were executed due to links with the outlawed Mungiki, former Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNCHR) commissioner Hassan Omar claimed.

Mr Omar, who was testifying before the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) on Monday, said after the KNCHR raised a red flag, police devised new ways of carrying out the killings.

He said people would disappear from their homes never to be found again or would be found dumped at the City Mortuary or on roadsides.

“Families that searched for their loved ones in police cells would be told to go away never to come back or they would disappear like them,” Mr Omar said.

Police would strangle the Mungiki members or drown them in rivers and create an impression that the deaths were caused by leadership rivalry.

“Because gun shots would easily unmask their extra-judicial killings, they resorted into killings where suspects’ bodies would disappear for good,” Mr Omar told TJRC commissioners Tecla Namachanja, (retired Maj) Ahmed Farah, Berine Dinka and Margaret Shava.

He told the truth team that last year alone, 60 suspected criminals died due to extra-judicial killings.

Mr Omar claimed at one time his life was in danger for raising the issue. According to him, lawyer Oscar Kingara and his assistant Paul Oulu, who were advocating against the killings in 2009, were killed by the police.

Mr Omar said former police officer Bernard Kirinya in 2008 provided the commission with information on how the force was carrying out extra-judicial killings but was snatched from their protection and killed.

“While he was still seeking United Nations asylum, which usually takes about two years, he was killed and police never investigated his death,” he said.

Ms Alice Wambui, whose husband Samwel Mwaniki was a suspected Mungiki member, told the commission he was arrested and taken to Kabete Police Station but the officers there denied this.

After several weeks of searching, she went back to Kabete and the station boss told her never to return lest she wanted to disappear like her husband.

“He told me to go and take care of the children or I also disappear like Mr Mwaniki and leave our children orphans,” she told the commission in tears.