Four Kenyan policemen jailed for manslaughter of British aristocrat

Death of Alexander Monson in cell in 2012 shone spotlight on police brutality in Kenya

Alexander Monson with his mother and sister in Britain in 2007 (via REUTERS)

Four Kenyan policemen were found guilty of manslaughter on Monday in the death of Alexander Monson, the son of a British aristocrat who was found dead in a police cell in the beach town of Diani in 2012.

Kenyan High Court judge Eric Ogola issued the verdict at a hearing in the coastal city of Mombasa. The high-profile case had shone a spotlight on police brutality in the east African country.

Monson, 28, was found dead after being arrested for what the police said was smoking cannabis during a night out in Diani, near Mombasa on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.

“The drugs were planted on the deceased after his death as a cover up,” said Ogola, adding that Monson was in perfect health prior to his arrival at the station and that he was “brutally tortured” while there.

The four policemen are Naftali Chege, Charles Wangombe Munyiri, Baraka Bulima and John Pamba. They all hung their heads after the verdict was announced, while one cried quietly.

Chege was sentenced to 15 years in jail, five of which were suspended. Munyiri was sentenced to 12 years, six of which were suspended. Buluma was given nine years, five of which were suspended, and Pamba was sentenced to 12 years, six of them suspended.

Monson was the son of Nicholas, the 12th Baron Monson and heir to a family estate in Lincolnshire in eastern England.

Two reports by government pathologists concluded that Monson had died after suffering a traumatic blow to the head. An inquest found there had been attempts to cover up the incident and threats against witnesses.

“This should send a strong message to the Kenyan police force to have respect for human life,” the victim’s mother, Hilary Monson, told the court, fighting back tears.

“I just feel like after waiting for 10 years, the sentence given to the accused persons isn’t enough for a mother who lost her child in such a brutal manner,” she told journalists after the sentencing.

Kenyan police face frequent accusations of brutality and extrajudicial killings from civilians and rights groups, but officers are rarely charged and almost never convicted.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority was established in 2011 to investigate police misconduct and has received millions of dollars in foreign funding.

Kenyans have filed thousands of complaints against police since its creation, but the organization has only secured 13 convictions against officers.

In a separate development on Monday, a Kenyan serving a 41-year sentence for involvement in one of the country’s worst militant attacks escaped from a maximum security prison, along with two other inmates detained for terrorism-related offences, authorities said.

In a statement, Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations named one of escapees as Mohamed Ali Abikar, sentenced to 41 years for a 2015 attack on Garissa University that killed 148 people, mostly students.

Describing all three as “dangerous”, police offered a 60 million Kenyan shilling ($536,000) reward for information that could lead to their recapture.

Reuters