A human rights panel on Monday implicated the Kenyan police in the execution-style deaths of nearly 500 men, but the claims were dismissed out of hand by the security services.
The state-run Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) linked the slayings to a war between police and a violent street gang accused of a string of beheadings and fatal shootings earlier this year.
The KNCHR said the victims were executed by a single bullet between June and last month. More than 450 bodies were found in the capital's City Mortuary, 11 in the eastern town of Machakos, and another 11 in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, the KNCHR said in a report on alleged executions and disappearances.
PHOTO: AFP
"Almost all the cadavers bear classic execution signs of a bullet behind the head exiting through the forehead," it said.
The findings "lead to the inescapable conclusion that the police could be complicit in the killing. The KNCHR is also extremely concerned that the emerging pattern points to possible complicity of state security agents in the disappearance of persons," it said.
KNCHR chief Maina Kiai called on police to explain how hundreds of bodies ended up in the mortuaries recorded on police registers, yet the force had flatly rejected any involvement in the deaths.
"There is need for a sense of accountability in our security forces ... Killing about 500 people without due process is a crime against humanity," Kiai told a press conference.
"We want police to tell us how those 500 people ended up in the mortuary between June and October. The burden of proof lies with the police," he said.
"The obvious question to ask is, if the police are themselves not responsible, why have they been unwilling or unable to investigate and curb the killings?" Kiai said.
He said police had been lax in following up tips passed on by residents, and refused to collect some of the bodies after their presence had been reported, leaving them to hyenas and other wild animals.
"Which citizen or organized criminal group would have the wherewithal and courage to ferry corpses for dumping on our roads, which are mounted with police checks after every few kilometers on a 24 hours basis?" Kiai said.
Maina said that during investigations his panel had encountered "at all layers of the police hierarchy ... stone walling, disinterest and outright denial of any knowledge on the killing and dumping of the bodies."
Police angrily dismissed the execution accusations as fodder for "horror movies."
"That is a very irresponsible statement. I do not know where they got the figures," national police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told independent NTV television.
"This is a very weird piece of imagination that would have passed as horror movie. I would like Maina Kiai to produce a post-mortem report from an authentic doctor declaring the cause of death," Kiraithe said.
"We invite anybody who have information about any killings to come to us. We will investigate it," he said.
The police declared months ago a war on the politically linked Mungiki religious gang, which was banned in 2002 after deadly slum warfare that claimed the lives of dozens of people.
Mungiki has been linked in recent years to extortion, murder and political violence. Its members also promote traditional Kikuyu practices, including female genital mutilation. Since March, the gang has been accused of murdering at least 43 people -- beheading several of their victims -- mainly in Nairobi slums and central Kenya.
The wave of killings peaked in June, raising fears of widespread instability in Kenya ahead of general elections due next month, but a police crackdown that killed dozens of Mungiki suspects has since curbed the violence.
Mungiki members have threatened to disrupt the elections and circulated leaflets in July calling on Kenyan youth to rise up against the government.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not