Probe starts on police beating of Kenyan lawmaker
NAIROBI - Kenya’s police watchdog has launched investigations into Tuesday’s brutal conduct of four police officers pictured beating a female lawmaker in the capital, Nairobi.
The police were deployed to the Nairobi County Assembly to disperse lawmakers who had tried to impeach the Speaker amid chaotic scenes, according to local media.
A standoff between the police and lawmakers ensued and the four police officers were pictured assaulting local representative Patricia Mutheu.
The country’s police watchdog said it had “contacted some of the people who were present during the chaos” to get testimonies.
“The preliminary enquiry seeks to establish the role played by police officers who were deployed at the premise,” it said in a statement.
The local affiliate of Amnesty
International has called on the police officers to be held accountable.
Meanwhile, Kenyan police arrested a fugitive wanted in the United States on charges of trafficking ivory and rhino horn, who arrived in the coastal city of Mombasa from Yemen, authorities said yesterday.
Abubakar Mansur Mohammed Surur was detained for alleged “ivory-related offences” after he landed in a chartered plane, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said on Twitter.
In a June 2019 indictment, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration charged Surur and three others with conspiracy to traffic at least 190 kilograms of rhino horn and 10 tonnes of ivory worth more than $7 million. Surur was also charged with conspiracy to launder money and distribute heroin.
The quartet had run their enterprise out of Uganda and neighbouring countries between 2012 and last year, according to the DEA indictment.