Kindiki dismisses claims of extrajudicial killings as malicious

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki says claims that law enforcement personnel are engaged in extrajudicial killings in some parts of the country are false and malicious.

In a statement on Tuesday, July 25, the CS defended the conduct of the police during anti-government demonstrations witnessed in several parts of the country recently, saying allegations of police brutalizing protesters are aimed at distorting public opinion regarding the recent violent protests.

“Claims that National Police Service (NPS) officers and other law enforcement personnel are engaged in extrajudicial executions and/or excessive use of force against the public or any section thereof are malicious, false and intended to distort public opinion regarding the recent orgy of violence that took place in some parts of the Country,” Kindiki said.

According to Kindiki the National Police Service (NPS) and other security organs in the country remain neutral and professional and should not be drawn into the current political crisis.

“…The National Police Service and other national security organs remain neutral, impartial and professional and shall not be drawn into political, ethnic or such other sectarian nuances whatsoever.”

Kindiki faulted the opposition for the claims, saying their leadership bears the greatest responsibility for the violent demonstrations.

“The architects of this false and distorted narrative bear the greatest responsibility for planning, financing and executing heinous crimes resulting in death and injury of civilians and law enforcement officers and massive destruction of private and public property during the past few weeks,” he said.

He insisted that the government is taking necessary steps to ensure the culprits face the law.

“Investigative and Intelligence agencies are analyzing solid evidence in their possession, which evidence is adequate to prosecute the key planners, executers and financiers of large-scale arson, violent robberies and destruction of infrastructure, as well as death and injury of civilians and security personnel,” he added.

During the past week, Kindiki revealed, a large cache of conventional and crude weapons,
narcotic drugs and cash were intercepted on their way to fuel the riots that rocked some parts of the country.

Kindiki said the security organs had established that licensed and unlicensed civilian firearms supplied by the masterminds of the recent violence were used to kill or injure civilians and security personnel, and the blame shifted to security officers.

“The scale of violence and destruction occasioned by persons masquerading as peaceful protestors exercising their Constitutional rights shock the conscience of mankind.

“Consequently, relevant agencies of the criminal justice system will proceed to conclude analysis of the available evidence to bring to account all those involved, notwithstanding their antics of politicization and
ethnicization of the grave matter of widespread lawlessness, crime and impunity, in a clear but hopeless ruse aimed at deflecting the inevitable consequence of accountability,” he added.

He assured that no stone will be left unturned in the ongoing probe.

“In the coming days, weeks and months, the masterminds of widespread violence against the people of Kenya, including those associated with the huge consignments of money and weapons which were intercepted on their way to harm the public have a date with accountability,” Kindiki added.

Kindiki’s statement comes days after National Assembly Minority leader Opiyo Wandayi termed police operations in the opposition stronghold in Kisumu, Migori and Homa Bay counties as “state-sanctioned genocide”.

In a statement on Sunday, Wandayi charged that in the three counties, people were being pulled out of their houses and shot or clobbered to death by police officers.

“The genocide-like operation underway in Luoland is not accidental. It is coordinated and premeditated. It is being coordinated by political and government leaders both from the community and outside. It is unfortunate and indeed depressing that our own sons and daughters in government are working with outsiders to allow the extermination of the Luo,” Wandayi said.

He went on: “Under the watch of our own sons and daughters in high positions in government and those who claim to be working with the government, our people are butchered. What is being done to our people here, under the watch and supervision of our own sons is only similar to what was done to the Jews in Europe by Hitler.”

While calling on the President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza regime to realize that the way to sustainable peace, stability and justice in Kenya is respect for the rule of law and human rights, Wandayi lamented that never in the history of the country have the Luos gone through the “kind of systematic genocide-like treatment”.

“What is going on now is way beyond what happened in 1969 or the tribal clashes of 1991/1992. Neither Jomo Kenyatta nor Daniel arap Moi subjected us to what Ruto is subjecting us to. I assure our people to take heart. God never sleeps. Like the Jews of Europe who survived the genocide and took over the world, the Luo will not only survive. We will also thrive,” Wandayi said.

The opposition called for 3-day protests across the country last week to demonstrate against the high cost of living, reconstitution of the electoral commission and the raid of opposition parties by the government among other issues.