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Kenya

Ex-military officers get Sh5.5mn each for coup torture

Justice Isack Lenaola was sitting at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi. Photo/FILE

Justice Isack Lenaola was sitting at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi. Photo/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 4 – The High Court has awarded 10 former military officers Sh5.5 million each as compensation for torture following the 1982 coup d’état.

Judge Isaac Lenaola ordered the State to pay the ex-military officers for being subjected to cruel torture and degrading treatment.

The judge disregarded the argument by the State that the officers may have been involved in the mutiny.

Justice Lenaola held that torture is not permissible under any circumstance and held that holding them for eight months without preferring charges was unlawful and a clear violation of their rights.

The officers gave an account of how they were arrested, tortured and moved from one detention prison to another.

“The fact that the Attorney General or any witness on his behalf did not deny these allegations indicates that the allegations were true and this court has no reason to doubt the veracity of the testimony of the officers,” he said.

Ex-officers David Gitau, Shaban Dosho, Johana Kiptarus, Hassan Mohamed, Daniel Koi, Khamisi Mwamgute, Peter Mungai, Jacob Mwaliko, Alfred Kahindhi and Graham Njau were serving as Kenya Air Force officers at the time of the attempted coup of August 1, 1982.

They told the court that they were all arrested by officers of the Kenya Army on the said date on suspicion of participating in the attempted coup.

They claimed that upon their arrest, they were stripped naked in public, made to crawl on their knees on concrete floors, whipped , kicked around, bludgeoned all over their bodies as they were being taunted that they were ‘educated rubbish’.

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