Policeman in student murder case remanded pending mental check

A police officer was charged on Thursday with the murder of a Form Two student five years ago.

Sergeant John Otieno appeared before Mombasa Resident Judge Eric Ogola but was not required to plead to the charge until he undergoes a mental assessment.

Justice Ogola ordered that Mr Otieno be taken to Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital for the assessment.

Mr Otieno is charged with murdering Tony Katana in Uwanja wa Mbuzi, Kongowea, on August 12, 2016. Tony was 16 years old and was a student at Havards Secondary School.

The judge also directed the deputy registrar of the Mombasa court to appoint a lawyer for Mr Otieno.

The directives were issued following an application by State Counsel Vallerie Ongeti. 

“We ask that the suspect be remanded at Port Police Station pending a mental assessment,” the prosecutor said.

The investigations into the murder took five years to complete.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa), which investigated the matter, said Tony died of bullet injuries inflicted during an encounter with the police at Uwanja wa Mbuzi.

“The death falls within the Ipoa mandate, to hold police accountable for their action,” Ipoa chairperson Anne Makori said in a statement.

Ms Makori added that Section 25 of IPOA Act demands that deaths that result from police action or are caused by members of the National Police Service while on duty be investigated by the agency.

“Consequently and acting on its own motion, the authority launched investigations that established that the student died of bullet injuries inflicted during an encounter with the police,” she said.

After finalising investigations, Ms Makori said Ipoa forwarded the file to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions with recommendations that Mr Otieno be charged with murder.

“The ODPP, after independently reviewing the evidence therein, concurred with the recommendations of the authority. Ipoa remains committed to being independent, impartial and fair,” she said.

The killing of Tony was witnessed by police officers on patrol that night and his friends who had accompanied him to a night wedding in the area.

A postmortem exam indicated that he died from injuries to his spinal cord and two gunshot wounds.

Police at the time claimed that Tony was part of a criminal gang operating in the area.

Mr Otieno was at the time attached to the Nyali Police Station.

His arraignment comes just days after Ipoa and the DPP recommended that five officers implicated in the death of a matatu tout be arrested and charged with murder.

Caleb Esipino Otieno died in a cell at Changamwe Police Station in September 2018.

The accused officers are constables Khalifa Abdullahi, James Muli, Joseph Sirawa, Edward Kongo and Nelson Nkanae.

Caleb died under mysterious circumstances shortly after he was arrested and detained at the station.

He was allegedly arrested at a nightclub the previous evening only to be found dead the following morning.

A postmortem report indicated he had suffered multiple injuries in his head, upper cervical spine of the neck and chest.

The report also indicated a fracture due to blunt force trauma, bleeding in the brain and injury in the upper spinal cord.

Caleb had been taken to the hospital and marked as “dead on arrival”. 

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