Police Not to Blame for Deaths During Anti-gov’t Protests – CS Kindiki Says

Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kithure Kindiki Thursday argued that police officers cannot be entirely blamed for the deaths of protesters shot during the deadly June 25 demonstrations. 

The protests saw the Parliament buildings in Nairobi invaded.

Appearing before the National Assembly National Security Committee on Thursday, Kindiki came to defence on why police officers shot peaceful protesters on the fateful day.

He said that owing to his experience in law, it is inaccurate to point fingers at police officers without substantiating that police bullets killed the protesters.

“The fact that somebody has been shot is not conclusive evidence that they have been shot by a police officer. Maybe there is a presumption that that bullet belongs to a police officer,” he said.

Kindiki justified the use of brutal force by police officers on the peaceful protesters, arguing that the national security force had to be deployed to protect national critical institutions including Parliament.

“It is not correct to argue that the police officers cannot use force. If we never applied force on that fateful day we would have been talking about a different Kenya,” he said.

“If we overthrow constitutional institutions like Parliament, Judiciary, Executive, we have no country. We would not have this discussion because the country would not be there in the first place.”

He claimed 42 Kenyans died during the anti-government protests that occurred from June to August, disputing reports from Amnesty International and several human rights organisations that recorded the figure at 61.

While unsure of how 12 were killed, Kindiki noted that he has a report detailing how 30 people were killed during the protests and the circumstances around which they died.

He pleaded to be granted 24 hours to provide the information on the remaining 12 cases.

Amnesty International said they detailed their investigation by conducting interviews with 23 eyewitnesses and analysing 45 videos and over 100 photographs from the protest day.

The report also revealed that 67 cases of enforced disappearances have been logged this year, with 40 cases resolved so far, leaving 27 still unresolved.

Human rights activists want a commission to investigate the killings.