Kenya: Police boss, AG under fire

  1. Posted on Thursday 26 February 2009 - 09:36
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    Jack Shaka, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya Photo: Lameck Nyagudi
    The Kenya police chief and attorney general must be sacked for alleged extrajudicial killings after election polls in Kenya, Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings recommended. He said: "Kenyan police are a law unto themselves. They kill often, with impunity."
    Lameck Nyagudi riots in the streets of kenya
    His remarks came after a 10-day visit to the east African country and when a video emerged of an officer saying the police commissioner had ordered the killing of suspects. The government rejected the report's findings and said it appeared to have been issued in bad faith.

    Alston probed claims of arbitrary killings amid violence after the December 2007 polls, after which he said on Wednesday that police commissioner Maj. Gen Hussein Ali should be sacked and also urged Attorney General Amos Wako to quit.

    During a media briefing at the UN complex in Gigiri, Alston attacked the attorney general whom he said is the greatest impediment when to it comes to prosecuting people in power suspected of extrajudicial killings.

    He recommended among others the creation of an independent civilian police oversight body to probe the killings. The UN investigator said of the police: "Often, they kill in the name of crime control, but in circumstances where they could readily make an arrest.”

    Alston visited Nairobi, Western, Central, Rift Valley and Nyanza Provinces talking to leaders and victims.

    Other recommendations in the report are that, all police killings be recorded at police headquarters in Nairobi and provision of clear orders to all members of security forces that under no circumstances will unlawful killings by the security forces be tolerated.

    Professor Alston did not mince words and appealed to the International Criminal Court prosecutor to take action. "The Prosecutor of the ICC should immediately undertake, of his own volition, an investigation into the commission of crimes against humanity by certain individuals in the aftermath of 2007 elections."

    The government gave a rebuttal through the Government spokesman – Dr Aflred Mutua -saying that the government rejected the report’s recommendations especially the resignation of the AG and the police boss.

    “The Government finds it inconceivable that someone who has been in the country for less than ten days can purport to have conducted comprehensive and accurate research on such a serious matter, as to arrive at the recommendations he made,” Mutua said.

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