Police have been unable to solve several murders in the last two years, and have instead recommended that Director of Public Prosecution Keriako Tobiko forms inquests. The Criminal Investigations Department has only managed to solve two of seven murder cases highlighted in the media. The most recent is that of a former senior police officer Bernard Kimeli who was killed in mysterious circumstances in 2011 in his house in Nairobi. Police sources said the CID will soon recommend that the DPP order a public inquest into Kimeli's killing because they were unable to make any headway.
Other cases that the police have failed to unravel and have recommended inquests for are the death of a 28-year-old the Briton Alexender Monson who died at Diani police station cells on May 19, and the death of university student Mercy Keino. The case of Kenya Power and Lighting staffer Careen Chepchumba Kili and another where Malaba police station commander Inspector Alexander Kihara is accused of murdering a policeman and injuring another are also yet to be solved. The CID has solved only the murder of Nairobi lawyer Rose Waruingi and the death of a secretary in Nairobi who was murdered, cut into pieces and her remains discarded in a river in 2011.
Detectives from the homicide unit last month recovered bones from Nairobi River believed to belong to 34-year-old Virginia Wamaitha Thuku. They have since prosecuted four people, among them a clinical nurse believed to the murdered woman’s spouse. Police charged two men in connection with the killing of lawyer Rose Waruingi who was shot dead in her house in Kilimani on February 10, 2012. Paul Muluki and Mutua Nzioki were charged with robbery with violence. They were accused of robbing Waruingi off her motor vehicle, a television set, two laptops, eight mobile phones, a radio and Sh73,000 while armed with pistols, before killing her. The stolen goods are said to be worth Sh1.6 million.
CID Director Muhoro Ndegwa has, however, defended the performance of his detectives. He said they were not incompetent in failing to solve the murders and that “things are under control”. Muhoro said police lack some of the necessary tools such as a forensic laboratory to conduct tests. Muhoro said the competence or incompetence of police officers could not be gauged by analysing the above cases together but by examining them on a case-to-case basis. The CID received Sh200 million for forensic investigations in the last budget, but Muhoro says this is hardly enough to build and equip a lab necessary to help police in investigations.
Tobiko agrees with Muhoro that the statistics are "not alarming" and defended the police against claims of laxity. This is despite the fact that Tobiko has at times returned investigation files to the police up to three times after investigators failed to attain the meet the evidence threshold. “They have done well but they can do better,” Tobiko said. He revealed that he has constituted a new team to investigate the murder of Monson and former GSU adjutant Erastus Chemorei. The team is composed of officers from the Law Society of Kenya, Kenya Human Rights Commission, the DPP office and the Independent Police Oversight Authority.
In an interview with the Star, Tobiko said the team was appointed to review the two cases which have been of public interest with an view of finding justice for the families of the murdered men. In the Kimeli case, investigators said they are yet to establish the motive of the murder despite having questioned about 15 witnesses. One year after the murder, investigators are keeping the file open in the hope that fresh evidence will emerge. The investigations stalled after police were unable to trace or recover the gun used to shoot Kimeli. Ballistic examinations have since revealed that the gun used was a Ceska pistol.
Another reason was because investigators were unable to recover Kimeli's mobile phone which the investigators intended to subject to forensic investigations for murder clues. Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said the CID had failed in investigating a possibility that Kimeli was murdered because he had critical information about the 2007-08 post-poll chaos.
Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had claimed that Kimeli's murder was one of the reasons he was apprehensive about handing over the evidence he had so far collected on the case. Ocampo alleged
the murder of Kimeli was linked directly or indirectly to his investigation and that the slain man was “in possession of sensitive information in relation to the misuse of police resources by the government of Kenya and or the PNU during the post election violence".
Police also failed to prosecute anyone in connection with the murder of Kenya Power employee Careen Chepchumba Kili and
recommended that the DPP order a public inquest into the death. Kili was discovered dead in her apartment in Kilimani prompting the police to question former TV presenter Louis Otieno, who was said to be in a relationship with the woman. Police, who asked the DPP to order an inquest, ruled that the 26–year-old woman was strangled to death by an unknown assailant. Two days before she died, Careen told her family that she had run up Sh3 million in debt, mostly money she borrowed from friends and relatives. Careen's father Hosea Kili, the managing trustee of Laptrust said he could not comment on the police recommendations. "Police cannot perform miracles. I know my daughter did not kill herself. I know she was murdered and l hope that one day her killers will be found," he said.
The CID also failed to solve the murder of university student Mercy Keino who was found murdered and her body dumped on Waiyaki Way last June. Police investigations suggested Keino’s
death may have been a hit-and-run case. After investigators failed to unravel the case and gather enough evidence, the DPP order an inquest that is currently proceeding in court. Last December Tobiko ordered the inquest into the student’s death on the grounds that police investigations were not conclusive. In a letter to Nairobi Provincial Criminal Investigations Department boss Peter Muinde, the DPP said there was not sufficient evidence to conclude Keino died as a result of a hit-and-run car accident. The DPP also assigned two senior state counsels to handle the inquest.
Tobiko last December ordered for fresh investigations into the death of former GSU adjutant Erastus Chomorei who was killed in mysterious circumstances in 2005 in his home by a battalion of police officers.
The police have denied media reports that Chemorei was killed because he was in charge of the store where a consignment of cocaine seized in Nairobi and Mombasa was stored. Chemorei's murder will be under fresh probe by the special team appointed by Tobiko.
Law Society of Kenya chairman Eric Mutua said a situation where the police are turning to the judiciary through inquests amounts to abdication of duties. Mutua told the Star yesterday that while inquests are a good way of resolving complex crimes, it is also an indication of incompetence on the part of the police. "It all boils down to the point that the police are incompetent in their investigations " Mutua said. Lord Nicholas Monson, the British national whose son died in Diani police cells has accused the Kenya police of incompetence in unraveling the murder of his son.
In an email to the Star, Monson said he was dissatisfied with the CID investigation report that called for an inquiry into the death of Monson. "The Criminal Investigation Department report into Alexander’s death is plainly ludicrous. If the son of a Kenyan official had died in such circumstances, we would not be where we are now." "In the face of global skepticism about the credibility of the Kenyan police authorities, we stood back to allow Mr Mohamed Amin, Director of Criminal Investigations, to conduct a full and thorough investigation into Alexander's death. Yet his report states he has absolutely no idea how Alexander died" said Monson. The Monson family has hired a private detective from UK to unravel the murder.