On the evening of June 24 this year, Hassan Ali* (not his real name), a businessman in Nairobi, parked his vehicle at Total petrol station in Hurlingham to buy medicine at Goodlife Pharmacy.
On his way out, he says he was accosted by a group of about seven men dressed in civilian clothes, who without introducing themselves slapped him on the face and dragged him to a waiting Subaru car.
Mr Ali claims he was thrown into the boot of the Subaru, as three of the men entered his vehicle and led the entourage to Nairobi Area Police Station.
In a statement filed at the Internal Affairs Unit, he claims he was taken to a room where the officers made him strip and forced him to lie on the floor with his hands cuffed to his back.
They then began torturing him using a stun gun, kicking him on the chest as they hit his lower abdomen and private parts demanding that he produces some stolen cash.
“The officers claimed that some people had visited my office at Westlands with some money and lost the money inside the office. At some point, they covered my head using a polythene paper as I struggled to breathe before becoming unconsciouss,” he said.
He claims in his statement that he recovered from his unconsciousness after the officers sprinkled cold water on him.
At around 5pm, he claims they ordered him to accompany them to his house along Lenana Road, where they conducted a search and confiscated Sh900,000 in cash, cheque books, a gun and about 47 rounds of ammunition.
After the search, they roamed around town till half past 11pm when they drove back to the Nairobi Area Police Station.
Around this time, Ali‘s wife and a few individuals had tipped the family lawyer Mr Vincent Onyango about what was happening.
Mr Onyango told the Nation that he followed his client to Nairobi Area but was denied access to him. He says he pitched camp at the station until late in the night when the officers walked out with his client bearing visible injuries on the hand, neck and face.
“The officers drove to Kamukunji Police Station where they booked my client. Officers at the station allowed me access to my client who I found distraught and crying. At that point, he revealed the injuries he had sustained at his lower abdomen and private parts,” recalled Mr Onyango.
The following morning, the station commander allowed Mr Onyango to rush his client to Ngara Health Centre along Park Road where emergency treatment was administered and a referral to Mbagathi Hospital issued.
The information was booked at the OB but the officers who had arrested him returned to the station before he could be rushed to Mbagathi, where an altercation ensued over his being taken to hospital in their absence.
Eventually, they agreed to his hospital admission and he was driven to Mbagathi Hospital where he was admitted for six days .
Two days after being discharged form hospital, he was arraigned at the Milimani Law Courts for robbery with violence. But the magistrate noticed that he looked unwell and in distress and instead directed that he be treated. The magistrated ordered that he reports back for plea taking after two weeks.
Former members of the disbanded Special Service Unit under the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, in a Kahawa court, Kiambu County, on Tuesday. They pleaded not guilty.
Photo credit: Simon Ciuri | Nation Media Group
On July 2, he filed a complaint at Kilimani Police Station under OB number 18/02/07/2023 but felt that the station may not be better placed to investigate its own and sought the help of the Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) in investigating the case. The unit helped him fill a P3 form at the station and kicked off the probe on the claims of torture.
On July 6, he went back to court and denied the charges and was released on personal bond but the matter was last month withdrawn by the complainant in accordance with Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
“The complainant said he is not interested in pursuing the matter,” Mr Ali’s lawyer explained.
Further, the magistrate ordered that his national Identity card be returned to him, while his phones and licensed gun remain with the investigating officer since they form part of prosecution evidence.
Mr Onyango claims during the torture, his client suffered a swelling no his scrotum that forced him to undergo a surgery at Kenyatta National Hospital.
A medical examination report from KNH, seen by The Nation says he sustained wounds around his wrists, right elbow, left leg, multiple parts of scalp, right temporal, occipital, vertex and frontal areas.
Other wounds were found in the glans, scrotum, thighs and buttocks. His chest was also found to be tender over at the rib cage in addition to signs of blunt trauma.
“The officers are still holding his ID making it difficult for him to even pay his medical bills via insurance, my client also says they took Sh1,040,000 from his car the day they arrested him and another Sh900,000 which the officers have not accounted for and are now threatening to deport him on claims that he does not have an ID,” said Mr Onyango.
IAU has since recorded statements from seven officers attached to the Operation Support Unit (OSU), a special squad that was formed last year following the disbandment of the Special Crimes Unit (SSU)-over the matter and issued summons for them to appear at its headquarters at KCB towers for the identification parade last Wednesday.
Mr Ali told the Nation that the identification parade has failed to take off twice after the officers failed to show up.
He claims his life is in danger courtesy of the multiple threats he has received from the officers, who have been nudging him to withdraw the case filed at the IAU.
“I have been tortured and harassed, my wife and children were verbally abused and forced to lie on the floor in the sitting room when the officers raided my house. This is why I am seeking justice,” he said.
The actions of the officers have again cast a spotlight on OSU, which was perceived as a replacement of SSU, a unit that became the poster image of police torture in the country after it was linked with the disappearance of two Indians and a Kenyan.
In October last year, President William Ruto ordered the unit be disbanded after a probe by IAU linked several of its officers to the disappearance and murder of the three.
“I am the one who ordered that the SSU, which was conducting extrajudicial killings, be disbanded. We have a plan on how to secure this country so that we avoid the shame of Kenyans killed (by the police and their bodies dumped) in River Yala and others. We are going to change this country for the better,” President Ruto said then.
The two Indians-Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai and Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan arrived in the country in April last year to join President Ruto’s ICT campaign team, but went missing on July 25 after they were abducted outside Ole Sereni Hotel together with their taxi driver, Mr Nicodemus Mwania Mwange.
On Monday, 13 members of the defunct unit were charged alongside an officer from the Kenya Wildlife Service and another from the National Intelligence Service with abduction with intent to murder the three, conspiracy to commit a felony, subjecting a person to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment contrary to Section 51 (3) of the National Intelligence Service Act and forgery.
Another squad that hit the headlines also for various negative reasons was the Flying Squad that was disbanded in December 2019 and replaced with a smaller unit dubbed Sting Squad Headquarters comprising about 50 elite officers.
