Lack of accountability fuels police impunity

Stephen Morogo (left), Sylvia Wanjohi, Deputy Sergeant Leonard Maina and Senior Sergeant Fredrick ole Leliman in a Nairobi court, where they were charged with murdering lawyer Willy Kimani Kinuthia, Josephat Mwenda and Joseph Muiruri in Soweto, Machakos County. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP.

What you need to know:

  • We are enraged by the brutal nature of these killings, astounded by the audacity of state security agents who turned into assailants when they ought to have been the protectors.
  • The Independent Medico-Legal Unit has documented 126 reports of police killings between January and December 2015, including 97 summary executions.
  • In 2009, a task force established to investigate cases of sexual violence committed during the post-election period forwarded a list of 66 complaints to the prosecutor’s office, mostly allegations of rape by security officers.

The heinous killing of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri Kimani, garnered significant national and international attention, eliciting outrage across wide swathes of society.

We are enraged by the brutal nature of these killings, astounded by the audacity of state security agents who turned into assailants when they ought to have been the protectors.

Why did the three have to die? Is it a crime to pursue justice in a country that prides itself on upholding the rule of law? And most importantly, will the families of these three young men ever find justice for their loved ones?

This is a story that is, sadly, not new. The Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), a local non-governmental organisation, has documented 64 cases of police killings just between January and April of this year – of these, 53 victims were summarily executed, while 11 died in unclear circumstances.

IMLU documented 126 reports of police killings between January and December 2015, including 97 summary executions.

Further, barely one week after the sombre burials of the three young men, numerous cases of police brutality, killing of civilians, and disappearances following police arrests have been reported in several parts of the country.

This is a story of entrenched impunity in Kenya’s Police Service: for decades police officers have boldly perpetrated crimes and violations against citizens without fear of punishment or reprisals.

In the horrifying post-election violence that followed Kenya’s 2007 contested presidential election, police officers and state security agents took part in brutalising the very people they were deployed to protect.

JUSTICE STILL PENDING

Three of their victims, women who were gang-raped by police officers, are among eight survivors whose for justice is still pending at the High Court in Milimani, Nairobi.

More than eight years since this dark ordeal and many others like it, not a single police officer has been investigated, apprehended, or held accountable for the sexual abuses. Nor have the survivors been compensated or provided with rehabilitation and other psychosocial assistance.

In 2009, a task force established to investigate cases of sexual violence committed during the post-election period forwarded a list of 66 complaints to the prosecutor’s office, mostly allegations of rape by security officers.

The task force suggested that the files be closed for want of evidence, mostly in cases where victims were unable to identify perpetrators or where victims could not present medical or other forms of corroborating forensic evidence.

In 2010, the Director of Public Prosecutions directed the police to conduct further investigations into those cases, including an evaluation of available materials that had the potential to form evidentiary basis, such as torn clothes or spent gun cartridges found at crime scenes.

However, there has been no public report on the outcome of the task force’s investigations, and six years later, it is still not clear whether they resulted in any subsequent prosecutions.

This has been the pattern in many other cases involving police perpetrators: investigations resulting in claims of insufficient evidence, loss of witnesses who in some cases were intimidated or murdered, and compromised crime scenes. Other cases have simply gone cold.

As the Police Service insists that these are only a few rogue officers within the service and that the institution as a whole must not be uniformly condemned, one thing is certain: the police’s failure to ensure thorough investigations and prosecution of rogue officers is tantamount to sanctioning police-perpetrated crimes.

The author is Kenya coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights; [email protected]