Court shown alleged CCTV camera positioned at Central police station/COURT PROCEEDINGS
The High Court in Kibera has heard how investigators from the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) traced what they described as alleged interference with the CCTV system at Nairobi's Central Police Station following the death of blogger and teacher Albert Ojwang.
Joshua Mutua, IPOA's head of forensics and crime scene investigations, testified that he led the video-related forensic investigations after the authority received notification that Ojwang had died while in police custody.
"I was prompted by a notification to IPOA that a person by the name Albert Ojwang had died," Mutua told Justice Diana Kavedza.
He said he and his fellow investigator visited Central Police Station on June 9, 2025, to establish whether the station had CCTV cameras and document the scene.
The court was first taken through a virtual tour of the station showing the holding bay where suspects are initially received.
Other sections included the corridor leading to the cells, washrooms opposite the cells and the staircase leading to the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) office, where another CCTV camera was installed.
Mutua said investigators photographed every section of the CCTV installation before examining the surveillance system.
He testified that officers at the station directed him to a technician identified as Dan, whom they said had installed the CCTV system, knew the system password and carried out repairs whenever faults occurred.
After calling Dan, Mutua said the technician informed him he was in Westlands and could not travel to the station.
He instead referred investigators to another installer, Aloni Okwako, who had helped install the system.
Mutua said Okwako assisted investigators in accessing the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) mounted inside the OCS's office.
As photographs were displayed in court, the witness identified CCTV cameras installed at the station entrance, report office, waiting bay, holding bay, cells and outside the OCS's office.
He said investigators initially found a monitor displaying the message, "Check signal cable."
"When we realised there was no signal on the screen, I checked the power supply of the DVR and confirmed one of the cables had been disconnected," Mutua testified.
He told the court that after reconnecting the cable, the system resumed normal operation and investigators proceeded to examine the DVR logs.
"We navigated the DVR system by checking the logs. We were to find out that the disc had been formatted at around 7.30.14 am on June 8, 2025, as per the log system," he said.
Mutua added that the logs showed a second hard drive had also been formatted at 7.30.25 a.m. the same morning.
The witness testified that investigators then removed the DVR from the wall with the assistance of Okwako and found two four-terabyte hard drives inside the device.
He told the court that an exhibit memo documenting the seizure of the DVR was prepared and signed on June 9 in the presence of Central Police Station OCS Chief Inspector Samson Talaam.
Mutua said the inventory recorded that the DVR power cable had been disconnected and playback analysis for the previous seven days showed no images.
This, according to his testimony, is while system logs indicated the operating discs had been changed and formatted on June 8, 2025.
He further testified that once the disconnected cable was plugged back in, the DVR functioned normally and investigators established that only one of the station's 24 CCTV cameras was faulty.
Earlier in his testimony, Mutua told the court he would also produce CCTV footage from Central Police Station and Mbagathi Hospital.
He added that the recordings showed Ojwang arriving at the station while able to walk and appearing to make phone calls before later leaving the station unresponsive.
