Police lead torture perpetrators in Kenya

Dennis Tarus

October 25, 2016 4:05 PM

Regular and Administration Police contribute to nearly 75 percent of torture perpetrators in the country.

According to a report by the Independent Lego-Medico Unit (IMLU), the Regular Police contributes to 61.4 percent while 13 percent of torture perpetrators are Administration Police.

The report, which covers a five-year period from 2011, indicates that most of the incidents of torture and ill treatment occur within the context of law enforcement.

Nearly 40 percent of the 727 respondents who indicated that they had been tortured or suffered ill treatment said that these acts had taken place in police cells with 21.6 percent being on the way to the police station and 19.6 percent being at the time of the arrest.

Torture increase

The report indicates a rise in such cases with at least 30 per cent of Kenyans have been victims of torture once since 2011.

This is an increase from the last survey carried out in 2011 where one out of four Kenyans had indicated that they were tortured at one point by the police or other agencies.

Other agencies cited as torture perpetrators were county government security officers at 4.9 percent, local chiefs at 4.8 percent, the army at 4.6 percent, prison warders at 2.9 percent and special police squads at 2.4 percent.

Nairobi recorded the highest incidences of torture at 41.3 percent followed by Nyanza and Western at 39.4 and 36.6 percent respectively.

Police Spokesman Charles Owino welcomed the report and reassured Kenyans that modalities have been put in place to ensure that such torture cases are dealt with.

He said such reports are helpful and that was why they wanted the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) formed to investigating such cases and help weed out rogue police officers.

Dennis Tarus