- Suspects who do not cooperate with the police are flown or driven to the British-funded ATPU headquarters in Nairobi where they are tortured, report says.
- However, Inspector General of police Hillary Mutyambai denied these claims.
Kenyan police subject terror suspects to torture and inhumane treatment, a report has revealed.
According to the Declassified UK, suspects who do not cooperate with the police are flown or driven to the British-funded ATPU headquarters in Nairobi where they are tortured.
“So when they would not cooperate they would be taken to ATPU cells where they would be denied water and food for a day. When you deny a Muslim water, he won’t go for long. Actually, he will talk,” an officer said, referring to the need for water to perform ablution before prayer.
For detainees deemed to be unwilling to talk, an ATPU officer told Declassified that, “We normally just strip them, put them upside down. That’s the way we normally do… We tie their private parts. Tie with rope and then we squeeze… We don’t leave scars. We’re professionals.”
However, Inspector General of police Hillary Mutyambai denied these claims.
"We don't have such a policy in the service and such a thing has not been brought to our attention," he told the Star on the phone on Thursday.
A report in 2015 by Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights details extensive allegations of suspects’ testicles being pulled, twisted and pressed with pliers.
The report noted that all these are done with the help of the UK foreign office.
It notes that the UK financial assistance to the ATPU is just one node of a secretive effort to support the controversial police unit.
The ATPU is implicated in clandestine night-time raids, which have gunned down not only terror suspects but also innocents, Declassified reveals.
RRT commandos – backed by NIS and ATPU officers – undertake raids against terror suspects in plain clothes, using unmarked hire cars, and swapping between private or unregistered number plates, in order to avoid identification.
“They are fully aware of their criminal culpability so they move in under the cover of darkness, or in disguise, so that their identity is not known… in essence they operate like a criminal gang,” Kenyan public interest lawyer Willis Otieno told Declassified.
During its investigations in Kenya, Declassified found no evidence that British diplomatic, intelligence or police advisers reproached or held their Kenyan counterparts to account for abuses that have spanned a decade.
According to a security officer, British officials do not want to hear complaints about the UK’s relationship to abuses by the ATPU, even in private meetings.
ATPU officers interviewed say the unit doesn’t have the capacity to collect and gather intelligence about terror.
“We just work under their [NIS] shadow. In local terms, the ATPU calls NIS ‘big brothers’. Every terror case here originates from NIS, not the ATPU.”