Rights group demands probe in Kenya police killings

Almost 1,200 deaths in Kenya in
the last five years blamed on the
police, according to Human
Rights Watch.

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“
” Peter Kiama, Executive director of
Independent Medico-Legal Unit
Kenyan police have been accused of 1,200
deaths in the last five years, more than
two-thirds of people killed by guns in the
country, according to Human Rights
Watch (HRW).
The rights group reported Kenyan security
forces have forcibly disappeared at least
34 people in counter-terrorism operations
during the last two years.
Only one police officer in Kenya has been
successfully prosecuted and imprisoned
for an unlawful killing in the last three
years.
The Daily Nation, one of Kenya's top-
selling newspapers, published the
country's first comprehensive database
detailing hundreds of such alleged killings
in the past two years.
It hoped the database covering 262 killings
since the beginning of 2015 would help
policymakers tackle police impunity.
'High levels of cover-up'
Kenya's struggle to track such killings has
many parallels with the US, the paper's
data editor Dorothy Otieno said earlier in
October when the database was published.
In both countries, the lack of official
information about police killings prompted
the national media to begin compiling
their own statistics, she said.
"Denial doesn't help. They need to
acknowledge there is a serious crisis in
the police service with regard to misuse of
firearms in majority of cases no
investigation is done," Peter Kiama, the
executive director of Independent Medico-
Legal Unit, told Al Jazeera.
"What we find is very high levels of cover-
up within the police service."
What we find is very high
levels of cover-up within
the police service
Mutuma Ruteere, the director of the
Centre for Human Rights and Policy
Studies in Kenya, told Reuters news
agency it was very rare for police to face
punishment.
"There's a large number of people who get
killed [by the police] but get buried
anonymously. Nothing is done. Over time,
that becomes a cancer and a virus within
the police," he said.
In June, hundreds of Kenyans
demonstrated after human rights lawyer
Willie Kimani, his client and their driver
were shot dead after suing the police over
a shooting.
Kenyan officials did not respond to
questions about the number of cases
submitted to or investigated by the
country's police oversight body that was
set up in 2012.
The Independent Policing Oversight
Authority's website only mentions three
cases where officers were charged for
shooting civilians.