Families recount police torture

During the years of the Mwakenya crackdown, the families of Karimi Nduthu and Tirop Kitur were harassed and also underwent incarceration.

Mrs Ann Chepkoech Kitur, wife of Tirop Kitur, narrates: “Prior to Tirop’s arrest, the police had not given me peace. They came almost every day and would lay ambush outside thinking that Tirop may be somewhere in the house.

“One day, many officers came at night and forced their way into our home. They turned everything in the house upside down, demanding to be told where Tirop was. But I told them I did not know.

“Then they asked me to accompany them to a house several kilometres away. They said that the owner of that house claimed that he knew where Tirop was and they wanted me to go with them to get the truth.

I left my young children alone. When we got to the house, that man was not home. The officers then told me to sleep in the house since we had come a long way and I was probably tired. I tactfully agreed. But immediately they had gone, I started walking back home. I was worried about my children.”

Rael Kitur, Tirop Kitur’s mother says: “They had arrested Tirop’s wife, his father, Karimi’s mother and father and were coming for me.
“One of them hit me with a baton on my forehead. The scar is still visible to date.

“They took all of us to a police station in Nakuru. After staying in the police cells for one week, I was taken to Ronda Estate in Nakuru where my sister was living. The police had told me that my son was there. We did not find him so we went back to the station.

Finally arrested

“Immediately after we had left my sister’s house, the police closed in on Tirop and his friends at Gilgil. He managed to escape and went to Ronda, the place we had visited with the police the previous day. It is here that Tirop was finally arrested.”

The situation was even worse for the family of Titus ‘Tito’ Adungosi. His mother, Marianne Nyabola says: “He was arrested in Nairobi, but I did not know.

A teacher who heard the news on Radio Tanzania in Dar-es-Salaam, that the chairman of the Students Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu), Titus Adungosi, had been arrested is the one who informed me.

But, even after his arrest, the police continued coming to my home.

The police, political leaders and prison authorities still have questions to answer regarding Adungosi’s death in prison.

“During a visit to the prison in 1987, Titus told his brother that he was due to be released in a month’s time. He talked with him in their local dialect, Iteso although the prison warders told them not to. He was in good health and did not show signs of sickness. This was the last time a family member saw Titus alive. He had told his brother to make arrangements in preparation for his release. This was not be.”

Continues the mother: “My son died mysteriously. Nobody in the family knew that he had died until a month later when a certain Kanu official told us.

We made arrangements to go to Nairobi to collect the body after we raised Sh6,000. Then, we started looking for means of transporting the body to the rural home.

“Locals refused to release their vehicles. They said Titus had died a political prisoner and they did not want to be associated with him. Later, we got a vehicle from an Asian businessman who was a friend of Titus.

“We proceeded to Nairobi and got the body which was decomposed.

“At home, we had another hurdle to overcome. No pastor wanted to conduct a requiem service for a political rebel. Many turned down our request, until we finally got a pastor called Benjamin. But, only people from around here attended the burial. Not even the students came.”

Veronica Wambui Nduthu, Karimi Nduthu’s mother, tells of her ordeal: “Karimi and his friends went underground, but the police thought he had come home.

Upside down

The police and CID officers kept on coming to our home hoping to find Karimi. Sometimes they would come and find us having supper. We would invite them to the meal, which they at times ate.

“There were also times when they would come and turn everything upside down. They would crawl under the beds and search behind water pots in our compound looking for possible hideouts of Karimi. We would not stop them from searching for him, but we told them we were worried about whether he was alive.”

Meanwhile, the family of Mzee Mbewa Ndede, a torture victim, will hold celebrations on August 30 to mark ten years since his death.

His family suffered under the police when Mzee Ndede was arrested in the 1980’s because of his close relations with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.