NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 30 – Two police officers have been arrested over the murder of a young boy who was shot in Nairobi’s Eastleigh estate, police said.
The boy was shot during a shoot-out on the estate’s 6th Street at about 3 pm on Tuesday and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
“The two police constables are being questioned in connection with the murder of the young man,” Nairobi Provincial Police chief Antony Kibuchi said.
He did not however elaborate the progress of the investigation but assured that “appropriate action will be taken against them once the probe is completed.”
Another senior police officer at the Kasarani divisional CID offices told Capital News the officers were summoned late Tuesday, three hours after the shooting and they were “immediately disarmed and locked up.”
“They spent the night in custody, but they are being handled as suspects in the murder,” the officer speaking on condition of anonymity because he is no allowed to speak to the media said.
Detectives were trying to establish circumstances that led to the officers’ pulling the trigger and killing the boy.
“Investigators will also rely largely on testimonies from witnesses,” the detective said and added that it had not been conclusively established who had pulled the trigger.
“Because both of them fired, we can only be able to know from whose firearm the bullet that hit the boy came from once an autopsy is conducted on the body,” he added.
But even as the police announced the arrest of the two officers, there was widespread skepticism over the outcome of the investigation and subsequent prosecution, coming barely a week after the acquittal of a former police constable accused of shooting to death two demonstrators in Kisumu at the height of the post election violence in 2008.
On this particular case and many others previously, police have been accused of carrying out shoddy investigations into cases involving their colleagues, culminating to dismissals in court.
In the Kisumu case for instance, Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo has accused the courts of mishandling the case, and setting free former police constable Edward Kirui for what the judge attributed to lack of evidence.
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