Two warders attached to the Naivasha GK Prison have been interdicted over the controversial death of an inmate last month.
The officer in charge of the prison Mathew Mutisya has also been recalled to the headquarters after allegations that inmate Simon Nduro Gitahi was tortured to death.
A report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the inmate was tortured.
Gitahi, 36, was serving a life sentence for robbery with violence but died on June 15, after he had been beaten up by a group of warders three days earlier for allegedly failing to line up.
The family protested against his death and sought the intervention of the government agency which moved in to investigate the matter.
According to the report, warders and inmates interviewed said that the victim was ruthlessly beaten and later locked in a segregation room.
“After being assaulted the inmate was taken to the segregation block without medical attention and he died at the prison and not on his way to the hospital as it was alleged by the officers,” reads the report in part.
The commission recommended that the DPP investigates and prosecute those involved in Gitahi's death.
The investigating team noted that based on the postmortem report, the inmate died as a result of circulatory failure in brain, lung and kidney due to blood clots in those organs.
“The cause for this was thrombo-emboli/fat emboli to the lungs due to soft tissue trauma by multiple blunt force,” the report says.
The commission directed that prison officers implicated in the torture or ill-treatment of prisoners should immediately be suspended pending a full inquiry.
Gitahi's father David Nduro said that they would be going to court to seek justice over the loss of his son.
He said that his fears had been proven right adding that the prison department had taken him in circles since the death occurred.
“I thank KNCHR and the pathologist who was very open and candid that my son was tortured to death by the warders,” he said.
Speaking in Kikuyu, the inmate's mother Mary Njeri said that her son had been the sole supporter of the family before he was unfairly jailed.
“I leave everything to God. It's very painful to first lose your son by being jailed and later been killed by people who were supposed to reform him,” she said.
(edited by O. Owino)
