Speaking during an interview on NTV on Thursday morning, Maraga said that while compensating victims is not in dispute, the manner in which it is being handled raises serious concerns.
“When we have courts, they should have just identified those people and then let the courts determine that. The courts are neutral. They’re the ones to compensate. But when you get the same executive officials being in charge of that, it raises a lot of issues,” Maraga said.
He further noted that no arrests have been made in connection with the incidents, questioning how Kenyans can be expected to believe criminal justice will follow.
“Have you seen any arrests? No. So how can we talk about criminal justice coming later? When we don’t know even whether those people have been arrested,” he said.
The former CJ said the government appeared more interested in “whitewashing its own criminal acts” than in pursuing genuine accountability.
“These are half measures. If you want to deal with a situation and convince Kenyans the government is sorry about what has happened, it should take firm action.”
Maraga also emphasised the importance of deterrence, arguing that failure to prosecute sends the wrong signal.
“Don’t forget, when a crime has been committed and somebody has been identified, the whole purpose of prosecution and sentencing is deterrence. Today it is Wanjiku. Tomorrow it could be you, it could be me.”
He noted that police officers are only permitted to use firearms as a last resort, when their life or that of another person is in grave danger, and questioned whether that threshold had been met in the cases under review.
His remarks come amid mounting frustration from victims’ families and civil society groups over the lack of prosecutions against police officers implicated in deaths and injuries, even as the State moves to offer financial compensation.
