The Director of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Ndegwa Muhoro, has told security officers not to spare any politician
found spreading hate speech during political rallies.
“We have trained our police officers
to arrest on the spot politicians and their supporters found uttering hate speech during campaigns.The officers have already been provided with recording gadgets that could be used in courts of law as evidence to incriminate suspects,” Muhoro said.
He promised that those found to have made inciteful
comments will be arrested and prosecuted, warning hate speech could trigger chaos as witnessed in the 2007-08 post-election violence.
Muhoro said there are no sacred cows. “The law is clear that anybody, regardless of his or her status, will not go scot-free if found inciting the electorate during campaigns.”
He spoke in Kericho town on Friday after officially opening new county criminal investigations offices.Muhoro was with Kericho
subcounty CID boss Kimathi Mutonga, county
police boss James Mugeria
and his CID counterpart Chacha Magwe.
Muhoro regretted that previous cases against
hate speech mongers had not
been concluded.
He blamed the problem on lack of proper investigations, or failure by key witnesses to testify against the culprits.
Muhoro said Kericho was a violence hotspot in the 2007-8 PEV, but he assured Kenyans that this year the region will be a haven of peace.
During a security meeting attended by the public at the Kericho commissioner’s office on Thursday, Muktar Abdi, the county commissioner, ordered police to act promptly on information received from citizens.
The state official said rumours should not be ignored, but need to be investigated.