The High Court has recommended that lawyer Willie Kimani, who was brutally murdered and his body dumped in a river, be recognised as a champion of justice.
In his judgment Thursday, Justice Luka Kimaru observed that the lawyer, his client Josphat Mwenda and their taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were abducted by police on June 23 while leaving the Mavoko Law Courts and detained in an ungazetted police cell, where they were tortured and then brutally murdered.
He said the cause of the trio’s deaths was a complaint made by Mr Mwenda to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority. Mr Mwenda claimed that he had been assaulted by an Administration Police (AP) officer, who was now pressurising him to withdraw the complaint.
The judge noted that investigations into the assault were hampered and obstructed by AP officers who were out to defeat justice.
As a consequence, Justice Kimaru said, the officers filed trumped-up charges of drug trafficking and six traffic offences against Mr Mwenda, whom they charged at the Mavoko Law Courts, where he was defended by Mr Kimani.
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He said Mr Kimani, as a human rights lawyer and defender of justice, relentlessly defended Mr Mwenda until the two met their death.
The court ruled that because of the ineptitude of the police, the three were not rescued even after their families reported them missing to the police. “Lawyers, judges and magistrates must be protected by police in the course of duty which involves protecting [the] rights of Kenyans provided under the Bill of rights in the Constitution,” the judge ruled.
After the three disappeared, the Law Society of Kenya filed a petition before Justice Kimaru seeking orders to compel police to produce them.
They were, however, found murdered. The court has been hearing proceedings on police investigations into the killings. Four AP officers have already been charged with the killings.
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