Baron dismisses police report on son’s death
The father of a British aristocrat who died hours after being arrested has dismissed as “whitewash” an investigation report exonerating police from blame.
“The report is an obscure whitewash. Investigative journalists have uncovered more to what happened to my son.
“If this is the best they can do then they are better finding another line of work,” said Lord Nicholas Monson.
Progressive forces
He added: “If it was people close to them who died in this way they would not have been involved in this whitewash. (READ: Family cries foul over Monson death probe)
“I still believe there are enlightened and progressive forces in Kenya and this matter will be championed by those forces as it is by me as the father. I’m not pessimistic about the outcome, I regard it as a set back and not a battle lost.”
The report prepared by officers at CID headquarters in Nairobi cleared their colleagues at Diani Police Station, where the victim, Alexander Monson, was held before he died.
It said that a day after Mr Monson died on May 19, a mobile phone and an ATM card he had surrendered to the police report desk disappeared.
Two officers who were manning the report office were quizzed on the matter.
Inspector Ronald Kimanzi made the inquiry against his juniors, but the findings are not included in the report signed by head of the investigations bureau at CID headquarters, Mr Mohamed Amin.
Curiously, the report adds: “On June 7, officers from CID while conducting investigations into the death arrested Saidi Ali Shepeu and recovered the same mobile phone.
“He was later arraigned in a Mombasa court for the offence of stealing and handling stolen goods. Later, another suspect, Justin Hassan, was also arrested.”
The report does not explain how the two got the phones from the station.
Immediately after Mr Monson’s death, police investigations showed he may have died of complications due to drug use.
But his family claimed that the 28-year-old was beaten to death while in police custody.
A new investigation, which based its conclusions on a pathologist’s, concurs with the family assertions that he died of an injury to the head, inflicted with an object.
