Only external pressure will make Kenya crack down on drug lords: report

The US thinks Kenya is in the grip of international narcotics trafficking rings. A leaked Nairobi embassy cable says the drug lords have secured a foothold through corruption, bribery and killings.

As a result, Kenya’s political, legal arm and police are incapable of fighting the menace, the cable from whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says.

Written in January, 2006, when Mr William Bellamy was ambassador, it accuses the Public Prosecutions department and the police of bungling investigations of high profile cases.

Police are said to have removed crucial evidence from a prosecution file leading to the acquittal of suspects over a record 2004 cocaine haul.

When senior police detective Hassan Abdillahi, investigating the haul was gunned down in Mombasa, among suspects questioned were brothers of a central Kenya politician.

Although the cable says most narcotics passing though Kenya are destined for Europe and the US, “it is undisputed that cocaine consumption among Coastal youths has soared in the past several years”.

The cable recommends that it is time “Washington turns up the heat” on the government “to move it to even attempt to kick its increasingly dangerous drug habit through public-private pressure, well coordinated with our diplomatic allies.”

This may explain Washington’s recent ban against five Kenyans suspected to be drug barons from travelling to the US. They are said to include an assistant minister and two MPs.

The cable was written during the trial of 12 people suspected of involvement in the record one tonne-plus shipment of cocaine seized in Nairobi and Malindi in December 2004.

The seizure in Mombasa and Malindi, then Africa’s largest, followed the interception in the Netherlands of a related consignment of cocaine believed to have been shipped from Kenya. Dutch authorities arrested several persons, including the son of a former Kenyan MP.

The cable charges that Kenyan authorities had been tipped off about the exact locations of several tonnes of cocaine, but hesitated to take action for nearly a week, allowing other drugs to be moved and suspects to escape. In the end, only a tonne was impounded.

During a December 19, 2004, meeting, the cable reveals, a US embassy official, whose name has been deleted, expressed frustration with the poor handling of the investigation and prosecution by the Kenya Police and the Department of Public Prosecutions.

The cable talks of the frustration of chief magistrate Aggrey Muchelule at the prosecution’s failure to produce the drugs as evidence (without which there is no case).

It says although the drugs were technically under the court’s jurisdiction, they were turned over to then Police Commission Hussein Ali for safeguarding at an undisclosed location.

Mr Ali, now post-master general, was recently named in Parliament as among senior officials who frustrated drug investigations.

The court finally had its way, and helicopters ferried the drugs to and from a neutral location for the court to inspect.

The court’s visit however, did little to allay concerns that the drug haul may have been tampered with or that the drugs were finding their way back into the market, the cable says.

On viewing the haul, defence lawyers alleged discrepancies in the weight and colour from those originally seized.

The cable says Kenyan authorities resisted repeated US, UK and Dutch offers to assist in the analysis and testing of the drugs, and to help trace the network that shipped it.

In the first of the two cases being pursued in Kenya, seven suspects were acquitted with the magistrate, Ms Rose Ougo, sharply criticising the police and the prosecution for their failure to build a case connecting the Kenyan defendants with the drugs, or to even establish that the substance seized was narcotic.

Ms Ougo was reportedly enraged that evidence she understood had been collected was not presented in court.

“Ougo dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. In her decision, she accused legal and law enforcement authorities of conducting shoddy investigations.

“The cable says this was done deliberately to get the main suspects off the hook. Those prosecuted were mere scapegoats as the big boys, including a then powerful minister in the Kibaki administration, enjoy impunity.

Following the murder of Mr Abdillahi, the Kenya Ports Authority District Criminal Investigations Officer, the then CID Chief Joseph Kamau publicly stated that the killing may have been linked to his investigations into organised narcotics trafficking and crime through Mombasa port.
He was reported to have been investigating the theft of 39 suspect containers from the port.

Among suspects questioned over the killing were brothers of a wealthy politician who owns a port container transshipment company.

The mishandling of the cocaine seizure cases and the murder raises suspicions about the integrity of legal and law enforcement authorities.

“Simply shipping multi-ton loads of cocaine suggests: a) this was not a virgin voyage, but one which employed a well-used route, and b) a route the shippers were comfortable was protected from interception.”