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On December 19, 2013, Martin Koome Manyara was brutally attacked while at Ruaraka Police Station, Nairobi, by the then station commander.

He later succumbed to the injuries. The OCS then embarked on a scheme to cover up the death by first faking a report that Manyara had been assaulted by cellmates.

He charged one of them, Kelvin Odhiambo, with the death. But the Director of Public Prosecutions later withdrew the charges, following a preliminary report by the police oversight body.

Reconstructing OB

The cover-up included reconstruction of an entry in the Occurrence Book to implicate the deceased as “violent”. The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) launched investigations and later charged the OCS with murder. 

The court was also told that the OCS released several suspects and offered to pay medical fees for one of them, who had been arrested for robbery. Later, the OCS was sentenced to death.

According to a senior police officer at the headquarters and human rights defenders, rogue officers normally rush suspects to court to settle scores, cover their mistakes or shield their colleagues from prosecution.

Overstep IPOA

They take advantage of Section 26 of the IPOA Act which prohibits IPOA from investigating any matter before court or judicial tribunal.

In another case, French national Francis Damon, a resident of Elementaita in Nakuru County, was set up and charged in a Naivasha court accused of sodomy.

Investigations revealed that his wife had colluded with  the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers in Naivasha. An affidavit by the alleged victim revealed how DCI officers and the estranged wife gave him money to implicate Damon.

The matter was withdrawn by ODPP after the victim and a key witness refused to co-operate with the DCI.