Kenyan policemen get sentences for murder of human rights lawyer

Kenyan police authorities have been accused of working hit squads concentrating on these, together with activists and attorneys, investigating alleged rights abuses by officers.

Three law enforcement officials and their civilian informant have been sentenced for the homicide of Willie Kimani, his shopper and their driver [Monicah Mwangi/Reuters]

A Kenyan courtroom has handed lengthy jail sentences to a former police officer, two serving ones and their civilian informant for the 2016 homicide of human rights lawyer Willie Kimani.

The “courtroom finds the homicide most foul with its meticulous planning and execution,” the choose, Jessie Lessit, mentioned on Friday.

Kimani, his shopper Josephat Mwendwa and their driver Joseph Muiruri had been killed shortly after submitting a criticism of police brutality.

Mwendwa, a motorcycle taxi driver, accused lead defendant Frederick Leliman of capturing him for no motive at a visitors cease in 2015. On the time of his loss of life, Kimani was working for Worldwide Justice Mission, a world authorized rights group that helps examine and doc police killings and brutality.

Their our bodies had been later recovered from a river outdoors the capital Nairobi. The case prompted outrage in Kenya, the place police have confronted frequent allegations of brutality and extrajudicial killings however are nearly by no means charged.

Kimani’s physique was discovered with wrists sure with rope. Three of his fingers had been chopped off and his eyes appeared to have been gouged out.

The choose singled out Leliman for performing “in flagrant abuse of his workplace” and masterminding the homicide.

He was sentenced to loss of life by the courtroom, nonetheless, Kenya normally commuted loss of life sentences to life in jail and has not carried out any executions since 1987.

The 2 serving law enforcement officials, Stephen Cheburet and Sylvia Wanjiku, and their civilian informant, Peter Ngugi, got jail sentences starting from 20 to 30 years.

Cliff Ombeta, a lawyer for the three officers, informed AFP that every one would enchantment the sentencing. “This judgement can't stand the take a look at of any courtroom of enchantment judges,” he mentioned.

In July final yr, a excessive courtroom choose had discovered three officers, together with a lady, in addition to a police informer responsible, of homicide. A fourth policeman was acquitted.

The police have mentioned they take motion in opposition to any officer accused of brutality, whereas the Impartial Policing Oversight Authority, a physique set as much as probe circumstances of police brutality, investigates such circumstances and recommends them for prosecution.

Nevertheless, police authorities have been accused of working hit squads concentrating on these, together with activists and attorneys, investigating alleged rights abuses by officers.

In October, Kenya’s new President William Ruto disbanded a feared 20-year-old police unit accused of extrajudicial killings and pledged an overhaul of the safety sector.

Prosecutors additionally introduced in October they'd cost police with crimes in opposition to humanity over a lethal crackdown on post-election protests in 2017, a landmark resolution hailed by the UN’s rights chief Volker Turk.