Lord fears son’s ‘killers’ will flee before verdict
Four Kenyan police officers on trial for murdering son of aristocrat seven years ago may never face justice
Their quest to bring their son’s killers to justice has dragged on for more than seven years, blocked at almost every turn by incompetence, cover-ups and the grindingly slow nature of Kenya’s legal system. Today, the parents of Alexander Monson, son and heir to the 12th Baron Monson, mark another milestone in their journey as the trial of four Kenyan policemen accused of beating him to death resumes in a Mombasa courtroom.
It is the first time the court is sitting for nearly three months yet it has only been through sheer doggedness that Mr Monson’s family managed to get this far. Yet, even now, with the end ostensibly in sight, Lord Monson fears that, whatever verdict the court reaches, the men accused of killing his son will escape a prison sentence.
When the trial began in January, the presiding judge ruled that the four defendants – Naftali Chege, Charles Munyiri, Baraka Bulima and John Pamba – should be set free on bail. They have denied the charges.
Following reforms to Kenya’s penal code, bail is granted more often than not, even for those charged with murder.
Not only is Lord Monson aghast that his son’s alleged killers remain at large he also fears that there is little to stop the four defendants from slipping away before the verdicts are read.
“Logic dictates that if you fear you are going to spend the rest of your life in jail if you turn up to face the verdict, then you don’t turn up to face the verdict,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“I would think that if they have the opportunity to avoid jail, they’ll take it. I mean, what person wouldn’t?”
Lord Monson’s concerns do not seem wholly unwarranted. Defendants frequently abscond, legal experts say, not least because Kenya has no system of electronic tags to monitor their movements.
And although the suspects are required to report regularly to a police station, they could well find colleagues in the force willing to help them escape.
Alexander Monson’s death was hardly an isolated case, after all.
Extrajudicial killings by the police are common. Few of those who carry them out are ever brought to justice, in part because police officers have become so adept at covering up for each other, human rights activists say.
Three of the four accused are still serving officers. Hilary Martin, Alexander Monson’s mother and Lord Monson’s ex-wife, says the family has not even been told if they have been suspended.
“If they are actually still in the service then that’s an outrage,” she said.
Since the day she watched her 28-year-old son, left, still handcuffed to a hospital bed, lose consciousness and die in May 2012, the family has had to deal, until recently, with relentless obfuscation by the police and Kenya’s authorities.
‘Logic dictates if you fear you’re going to spend the rest of your life in jail then you don’t turn up for the verdict’’
Officers at the police station where Alexander Monson was held following his arrest on suspicion of smoking cannabis outside a nightclub initially insisted that he had died of a drugs overdose.
Kenya’s police watchdog, formerly funded by Britain and modelled on the Independent Police Complaints Commission, initially sided with the officers.
Despite two government postmortem reports detailing blunt-force trauma injuries across Alexander
Monson’s body, the watchdog initially concluded that he had died from a fall. Bruises to his groin were explained away as having been caused “by vigorous oral sex”.
In June last year, the family won an unexpected victory as the magistrate presiding over the inquest ruled that Alexander Monson had been killed in custody and recommended the four officers who held him be charged with murder.
Yet for 10 months the trial has dragged on, suffering frequent postponements for often inconsequential reasons, causing further alarm for the family.
With the prosecution yet to complete its case, and the trial only due to sit for three days this week before being suspended again, a verdict is not likely for months. “In no other country in the world could a murder trial be taking place which takes years when it should have taken weeks,” Lord Monson said.
Each delay adds to the agony the family has suffered, Mrs Martin added.
“One can never get over the death of a child but you can get through it – but not if obstacles are constantly put in your way,” she said. “It is horrific. Instead of being able to heal the wound, it is constantly being reopened.”
It is not just the family that is worried. Kenyan human rights campaigners say that a successful conclusion to the Monson case would serve as an important precedent in ending security service impunity and extrajudicial killings.