Shock as historic charges against Kenyan police dropped

The case was unprecedented in Kenya’s years-long campaign against police impunity – a record 15 officers sentenced to trial charged with terrifying rampage in a family home.

Never before have so many police officers – almost an entire station in western Kenya – been charged with criminal charges for a single act of alleged police brutality. Victims filed in a courtroom in February in hopes of witnessing a rare and historic moment of justice.

Instead, they sat in shock as state prosecutors told the court the case was withdrawn.

“The prosecutor just appeared and said, ‘I’ll drop this’. They weren’t even required to litigate, ”said Peter Kiama, executive director of the Independent Medico-Legal Unit, a non-profit organization that provided legal aid to victims.

The silent sidelining of such a high-profile case bore the opaque marks of a darker past, when the state shielded police from prosecution and embarrassing trials used to go away, lawyers said and human rights defenders.

The historic case, in preparation for nearly a year, had received the full support of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), before being abruptly withdrawn without explanation.

Neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office have spoken publicly about the decision to withdraw the charges, and spokespersons for both institutions have not responded to repeated requests for comment.

“Anyone interested in accountability would be very shocked by this turn of events and very disappointed,” Kiama told AFP.

Violent frenzy

Charged police were enforcing a coronavirus curfew in Busia County on the evening of March 30 when they reportedly entered Benard Orenga’s private home. Police claimed the premises were a bar, Amnesty International said.

According to the indictment, the police went into a violent frenzy.

Police released tear gas, smashed windows and furniture, and savagely beat Orenga in front of his family before turning their clubs and whips on his wife, children and neighbors.

The Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) has opened an investigation.

He found sufficient evidence to recommend prosecuting the 15 accused police officers, and six county law enforcement officers were also involved.

The DPP agreed and on January 21 charges were announced at a watershed moment.

Kenyans protested in July last year against police brutality. By TONY KARUMBA (AFP / File)

“Of course, we were delighted. It was unprecedented, ”said Harriet Wachira, program coordinator at Transparency International.

The accusations made headlines after a year in which public anger over police brutality erupted during protests.

Amnesty and other civil society groups recorded 166 killings by police in 2020 – the highest number since data collection began in 2007.

At least 15 people have been killed by police enforcing a coronavirus curfew, the IPOA said. Dozens of other serious crimes have been alleged, and social media has been littered with graphic scenes where police violently clear the streets before dark.

Police spokesman Charles Owino did not deny that curfew-related abuses had taken place.

“Some of these policemen are very young, and they are still very erratic. They can easily get drunk with the little power they have and do very bad things,” Owino told Kenyan television station NTV in June.

Symbolic

The Busia case was hardly the worst of a year in which police brutality was particularly gratuitous.

But the DPP only approved the charges in another pandemic-related incident: the death of a 13-year-old boy, who was shot as police opened fire to clear streets with curfew in a Nairobi slum on the same day agents stormed Orenga’s house. in Busia.

A public trial of 15 officers would have been symbolic and sent a strong and timely reminder that no one was above the law, said Demas Kiprono, Kenyan lawyer and Amnesty campaign manager.

“It was going to be a revolutionary affair,” he told AFP.

Many recent allegations of police brutality are linked to the enforcement of coronavirus restrictions like curfews. By Yasuyoshi CHIBA (AFP / File)

Few police officers in Kenya see the interior of a courtroom, let alone a prison cell.

Amnesty has documented 778 murders and enforced disappearances by police since 2007, but only 28 counts of these crimes.

The IPOA was established by Parliament in 2011 to provide civilian oversight of a powerful and untouchable institution that is also among Kenya’s most corrupt.

But of the roughly 6,000 cases of police misconduct that the IPOA investigated from its inception until the end of 2019, only six police officers had been convicted.

Activists have widely defended the authority’s track record, saying police are failing investigations by refusing to report deaths in custody or by transferring accused officers to protect their own.

The IPOA did not respond to requests for comment.

“It is not easy to investigate individuals within an institution whose culture is one of impunity,” Kiama said.

Deflated but not defeated, supporters of the Busia affair are pressuring the DPP for answers.

“It was an important step. That’s why we will not let go,” said Kiama.