Court convicts police boss Masengeli, but opens window for escape
Justice Lawrence Mugambi in court on September 13, 2024. Inset is Acting Inspector-General of Police Gilbert Masengeli.
The High Court convicted and sentenced Acting Inspector-General of Police Gilbert Masengeli to six months in jail, but left a seven-day window during which the police boss can argue his way out of imprisonment for contempt of court. He could, instead, only pay a fine or go completely scot-free.
While issuing the sentence to him in absentia, Justice Lawrence Mugambi, who said he had given Mr Masengeli time to vindicate himself, said he “indulged him to appear before him to explain the difficulties he encountered in complying with the court orders.”
While acknowledging that hierarchical bureaucracy may make it hard to effect a court order to arrest Kenya's top police officer, the judge had ordered him to surrender himself to the Commissioner of Prisons who would then hand him over to a correctional centre.
But in all this, however, Justice Mugambi still gave the police boss one last opportunity to exonerate himself, as pleaded for by his lawyer Cecil Miller as well as State Counsel Emmanuel Mbitta and Wanjiku Mwangi.
As a result of the insistence by Mr Miller, the judge yielded.
"... The court shall suspend this sentence for seven days only. The acting Inspector-General can redeem himself by availing himself before this court in person to answer the issues which he has been avoiding. Failure to doing so, the sentence will take effect," Justice Mugambi ruled.
If he turns up in court in person as directed, Mr Miller will offer an explanation for the recent snubs, after which the judge will decide whether to impose a fine or not as he has been convicted already.
The judge directed the case be mentioned before the presiding Judicial Review and Constitutional Division judge, Justice Enock Chacha Mwita, to direct how the matter will proceed and who will hear it as Justice Mugambi will be involved in a different case.
Mr Masengeli, through Mr Miller, had sought to stop delivery of the sentence to enable him mitigate and narrate the hurdles he experienced in complying with the court order.
He had been summoned to explain the whereabouts of activist Bob Michemi Njagi and brothers Jamil Longton Hashim and Aslam Longton, allegedly at the hands of police on August 19, 2024.
