NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 6 – High Ranking police officers will be held criminally responsible for serious offenses committed by their juniors if Members of Parliament heed the call to amend the National Police Service (NPS) Act.
The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) called for the amendments following the recent emerging trend by NPS officers during their operations to conceal their identities using unmarked cars and distorting vehicle number plates.
IPOA pointed out their oversight role to hold police accountable has been hindered following the anonymized policing trend by the National Police Officers increasingly witnessed during protests.
“Police superiors also fail to prepare and /or provide operations orders and deployment schedules to the authority. The above gravely undermines the Authority’s effort to hold individual police officers to account,” said IPOA Chief Executive Officer Elema Halakhe.
Appearing before the National Administration and Internal Security, the authority is investigating cases of six victims who are still missing including Wajir County MCA Yussuf Hussein who went missing on 13th September with claims of police abductions emerging as police involvement has been cited.
The oversight body is also probing the death of to individuals Gideon Kioko and Denzel Omondi who were abducted in July and found dead weeks later.
The House team members were however irated after IPOA failed to furnish the committee with details on the specific police unit which circumvented the law in controlling the anti-government protests.
“The question of who is responsible in terms of police officers is dependent on investigations which is usually case by case and can only be ascertained upon conclusion. I don’t want to generalize and these cases are on different levels of investigations,” Halakhe noted.
Homabay Town MP Peter Kaluma demanded the status of the investigation decrying that families of the victims are still living in anguish following the extrajudicial killings and forced abductions perpetrated by police officers.
“Do you have proof to confirm this abductions are being conducted by the NPS.The state of the investigations for the sake of the families to pursue justice. In the course of your investigations which unit of the police do they come from” said Kaluma.
Sotik MP Francis Sigei added:, “Kenyans are alarmed by the recent abductions and killings and this country are governed by law. Can you elaborate on cases where the IPOA has conducted investigations and there is concrete evidence that police were involved.”
Halakhe warned against blanket condemnation when it comes to culpability of police officers saying the authority deals with complains read on a case to case basis.
“The proof on the unit involved is determined case by case and we have been able to establish that in some cases special unit are involved in the abductions and kidnappings,” IPOA CEO stated.
The cases were forwarded following protest charged by the Genz were mainly to oppose the finance bill 2024 which was withdrawn following public uproar as it proposed increased taxes, including some regressive taxation measures amid high living costs.
The rights groups said evidence confirmed that police unlawfully used a combination of lethal and less lethal weapons against protesters who were largely peaceful, save for isolated incidents where some threw stones or teargas canisters back at the police.
