The shocking and brutal murder of the human rights lawyer Willie Kimani on 23rd June 2016 is symptomatic of challenges facing Human Rights Defenders(HRDs) working on security sector reforms.
In June 2016 Lawyer Willie Kimani was gruesomely murdered in cold blood. His case has since been pending in Court and has attracted attention from all other HRDs both nationally and internationally. Willie Kimani is said to have been murdered by police officers alongside his client and their taxi driver. According to the human rights report, the Lawyer was pursuing justice against administration police officers who were harassing his client.
CASE FILES AND BRIEF FACTS LEADING TO KIMANI’S MURDER AS PER HRDs REPORT
WILLIE KIMANI’S MURDER.
In 2015 Mr. Josephat Mwendwa was shot by an administration police officer based at Syokimau AP Camp under unclear circumstances. The police filed several criminal charges against him including possession of narcotic drugs, gambling in public places, resisting arrest by police officers in a bid to cover the shooting. Mwendwa lodged a complaint on the alleged shooting with IPOA who opened an investigation into the matter. The officers began intimidating and blackmailing Mwendwa to withdraw the complaint. They threatened to kill him.
They later arrested him and charged him with several traffic offenses including riding a motorcycle without a helmet, riding a motorcycle without a reflective jacket, carrying excess passengers, carrying uninsured passengers, riding an uninsured motorcycle, and driving a motor cycle without a driving license. The charges were all believed to be fabrication intended to get him to drop the complaint. He was also alleged to have been involved in a robbery with violence although no charges were filed against him.
Mwendwa sought assistance from the International Justice Mission, a human rights NGO based in Nairobi. The Mission assigned Willie Kimani to Mwendwa’s case. On 23rd June 2016, Willie Kimani accompanied by his client (Mwendwa) and a taxi driver were abducted by persons believed to be police officers on their way from Mavoko Law Courts. A witness reported to investigators seeing one of them detained in a container at Syokimau AP Camp.
Ngugi a prosecution witness testified before Judge Jessie Lessit at Milimani Law Courts that, Kimani, his client Mwendwa and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were killed on the night of June 23rd 2016, at Soweto area of Mlolongo within Machakos County.
Upon investigations, four police officers and a civilian were charged with murder. Ngugi was charged alongside police officers Stephen Morogo, Sylvia Wanjohi, Leonard Maina, and Fredrick Leliman. Ngugi would, later on, turn to a state witness and pinned the four accused police officers to the crime scene. “I did not expect to be charged with the murder since the investigators promised to have me as a witness if I confessed. They also promised to give me a house, pay me Ksh 30,000 per month and give my wife Ksh 200,000 to relocate” Ngugi said in Court.
Ngugi, a class four dropout was selling mitumba for a living before turning into a spy and dumping the bodies of victims allegedly killed by rogue police officers.
The defense has closed its case. Milimani Law Court in Nairobi will deliver a verdict of the case on February 11, 2022.
Willie Kimani’s case is just a micro-sample of other unaccountable similar human rights violations of HRDs in Kenya. For instance, in April 2018, Evans Njoroge alias Kidero, a student activist was shot and killed by a police officer for leading students in demonstrations. In August 2018, land rights activist Esther Mwikali was killed and her body dumped in a thicket in Mithini. In January 2018, Robert Bundotich, a community leader from the Sengwer community was shot dead by Kenya forest service officers.
Kenyans and the HRDs fraternity are eagerly waiting to see if justice will be served to the fallen HRDs heroes and heroines.
