The past week has thrown up harrowing tales of how badly suspects are treated in police custody. The biggest case was that of Albert Ojwang, picked up by police from his home in Homa Bay, driven to Nairobi’s Central Police Station, and beaten to death.

The case sparked widespread outrage. Several police officers have been arrested and charged.

In Kisumu County, a man died by suicide in the cells at Katito Police Station in Nyakach sub-county. The police said he hanged himself with a vest. Yeah, right!

Another suspect reportedly died by suicide at the Ukwala Police Station cells in Siaya. Police say Joseph Otieno Oduor was found hanging in a toilet. Really?

In Nyandarua, a seven-month pregnant woman miscarried in the cells at Rwanyambo Police Post. She had been arrested and detained following a complaint from her employer about missing funds. The officers obstinately ignored her family’s pleas to release her.

She was in severe pain, started bleeding, and then miscarried. Police kept her in the cells for hours without medical attention. Very, very callous. Those are not human beings. Those are animals.

These are cases in the past week alone, at only four stations! Imagine the horror suspects undergo at stations across the country daily!

The brutality, sheer depravity and impunity with which officers treat suspects in police cells is one of the biggest blindsides in the justice system today.

It is amazing how this has eluded the entire justice system, from courts where these suspects are brought daily, many clearly brutalised, to human rights activists who seem numb to these atrocities, and to the top police command who seem to have normalised them.

It also seems to have become accepted that police cells must be filthy, smelly, damp, and generally unfit for human habitation. Hygiene standards need to be improved drastically.

They are also centres of extortion where freedom is literally auctioned!

Police officers – suspects in police cells are not your property to use and abuse as you see fit. These suspects have rights, for crying out loud! Indeed, they are presumed innocent since they are awaiting their day in court.

Many will be found innocent, and you have already brutalised an innocent individual.

The death of Ojwang should trigger radical reforms in the police custodial system.

For once, everybody seems to be of one accord – the Executive and the people. The President has declared that police officers who brutalise the public must be made legally accountable.  

This is the time to draft, gazette, and implement drastic reforms in the police custodial system.

For too long, police officers manning police stations have elevated themselves to demigods, with their stations some kind of kingdom where they have the power of life and death over suspects.

This culture must be broken. The station commander (OCS) and all the officers on duty at the time any harm befalls a suspect in police custody must be made personally liable. These are the officers with the primary responsibility for suspects in custody. They owe the suspects and their families a duty of care. If they fail in this duty, they have failed in one of their cardinal mandates and must bear personal responsibility.  

Senators and MPs, who have been shouting themselves hoarse over the Ojwang murder, must take the lead.

gathukara@gmail.com