Two police officers have been found guilty of unlawfully killing a woman in Mandera County.
Abdia Omar Adan was shot dead on November 10, 2018, during a raid at her home by officers attached to Rhamu police station.
Officers responsible for her death – Denis Langat and Kennedy Okuli – who were rendered out of service are awaiting sentencing for the offence of manslaughter.
A post-mortem report produced in court shows that Adan died of excessive bleeding after a bullet fired at close range shot through her lungs.
The bullet went through the neck and exited on the woman’s back.
In the first place, the officers were arraigned for murder but the court commuted the charge for manslaughter after considering the circumstances surrounding the incident, including a public upheaval that occurred during the incident.
On the fateful day, the officers left their station for the woman’s home with the intention of arresting her son who they had cited for dealing in cannabis sativa (bhang).
The court heard that the son fled the homestead as four gunshots rent the air during the tussle between the officers and his mother, a scuffle that attracted neighbours and passer-by’s and further spiralled from the homestead to the hospital where the Ms. Adan was pronounced dead.
Besides the fatality, an officer sustained a bullet wound in the thigh which he told the court was inflicted after a shot was fired from an agitated crowd that responded to the police operation.
The Court dismissed the claim and on the contrary relied on IPOA’s investigations that established the officers “were the only armed persons at the scene during the incident and that the accused shot himself in the botched operation.”
A witness also told the Court that the officer shot himself.
