Security team accused of 'sleeping on the job'

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has accused the police of failing to prevent Monday night’s massacre of 28 people by suspected Mungiki members.

The commission accused security agencies of failing to prevent the attacks leading to the gruesome murders in Mathira, Nyeri East district despite having information that the sect’s adherents planned to attack villages to avenge the killings of its members in neighbouring Kirinyaga district.

“Security agencies must take full responsibility for this savage slaughter of villagers. It is an open secret that after villagers had allegedly attacked and killed Mungiki adherents, the sect vowed to revenge.

"But the security intelligence apparatus chose to sleep on their job," said the commission’s vice chairman Hassan Omar Hassan at a press conference in Nairobi. Commission chair Ms Florence Simbiri-Jaoko also attended the press briefing.

The Commission was reacting to Monday night’s murder of 28 villagers at Gathaithi village by suspected Mungiki believed to have been avenging the deaths of their 14 colleagues hunted down and killed by vigilantes in neighbouring  Karatina district over the last two weeks.

The commission demanded that the perpetrators of the murders be arrested and charged in court, but warned the police and vigilantes against resorting to extra judicial means under the guise of cracking down on the sect’s adherents.

“We warn wananchi and the police that the solution to the Mungiki menace and other outlawed gangs does not and will never lie in extra-judicial killings. The State should not use illegal means in retaliation, for if the State cannot obey the law, why should ordinary citizens be law abiding?” wondered Mr Hassan.

KNHCR at the same time demanded the implementation of the Waki Commision report which recommends comprehensive reforms in the police force to address security issues in the country.

Mr Hassan noted that the disarmament, demobilisation and reintergration of criminal gangs are essential to peace building in the country and called upon security forces to wipe out various militia operating in the country.

He also called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of politicians who support or fund the activities of such criminal gangs, saying it was common knowledge that top politicians had used them to further their political ambitions.