Is President William Ruto cracking down on police killer squads as a matter of principle or merely in reaction to his presidential election campaign contractors allegedly becoming victims?
This is a fundamental question that could help us to weigh how genuine the new government is in its stated commitment to stop, once and for all, extra-judicial killings and misuse of government security and administrative organs for political missions.
Dr Ruto vowed during the campaigns to put an end to police killings, and he is living up to his word with the disbandment of the Special Services Unit (SSU) of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and arrest of officers suspected to have been involved in criminal activities.
Investigations have so far centred on the suspected abduction and murder of two Indian citizens—Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan and his friend Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai—and their Kenyan driver Nicodemus Mwania. The foreigners are said to have been IT experts engaged by Dr Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza Alliance campaign machinery.
If police officers were involved in murder most foul, they must face the full force of the law. The message must be sent out loud and clear that the culture of impunity which permeates sections of the National Police Service will never again be tolerated, and that officers who break the law will face individual culpability.
Criminal elements
However, it must be clear that the crackdown on criminal elements within the police is not dictated solely by the fact that victims included President Ruto’s campaign operatives. While those behind the case must be caught and punished, it is disturbing that investigations are focused on that one case, to the exclusion of many others. We are getting almost daily reports of how the President, having taken a personal interest in the case, is getting regular updates on the investigations and even issuing directives on the next steps.
That, at one level, might be commendable. The President getting so keenly engaged sends a very powerful message that there will be no room for shoddy investigations or cover-ups. However, there is also a danger that the investigators will feel under pressure to make arrests and produce suspects in court.
The Kenyan police does have a sad history of arresting innocents and securing convictions after extracting confessions through torture and other unorthodox means. After providing the general direction, it is important that President Ruto step back and allow the investigators to do their jobs without any involvement that could be interpreted as political pressure.
Dark and murky activities
It is also important that investigations be expanded from one case or a few others being flagged by President Ruto’s social media brigade, similarly affecting Kenya Kwanza operatives.
Probes into the dark and murky activities of various specialised police detachments, starting with the disbanded SSU and its various predecessors, such as the Flying Squad, Special Crime Prevention Unit, Kwekwe Squad and Kanga Squad, as well as the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, must not be reduced to a Kenya Kwanza affair.
Focusing only on crimes against the governing political formation itself amounts to politicising the investigations and ignoring the hundreds, nay thousands, of other cases of abduction, disappearance, murder and false imprisonment.
If, indeed, the previous government misused the police for illegal political missions, we must not now have a situation where a criminal syndicate in uniform is simply forced to shift allegiance from one regime to another. The ongoing investigations must, therefore, be expanded into a much wider independent commission of inquiry into criminal misdeeds by our security agencies. That will mean documenting all past extra-judicial executions and other crimes, punishing the perpetrators and paying reparations to the victims.
It is on such a foundation that a real reform of the police and entire criminal justice system will be built. Ultimately, we need a police service that serves citizens rather than the government. One that lives by its “Utumishi Kwa Wote” motto.
We also need to take note of the fact that many Kenyans actually support extra-judicial executions. There is a need, therefore, to educate them that, in many instances, the victims are not terrorists, Mungiki or other violent criminals as reported but innocent, law-abiding citizens who simply crossed the path of the wrong person.
We also need to educate those now in Kenya Kwanza who, while still loyal to the then-ruling Jubilee administration, actively cheered police repression directed against the opposition of the day.
It was only when the boot was on the other foot that they felt the pain on police excesses. Now that they are in power, it would be tragic if they never learn the hard lesson and might now want a police service they can use against political foes or love rivals. BY DAILY NATION
