Senators force IG Kanja to apologise over false police report on Ojwang’s death in custody

Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja on Wednesday faced intense pressure from Senators to apologise for a misleading police report that falsely claimed Albert Ojwang died after hitting his head on a wall while in custody at Nairobi’s Central Police Station.

While appearing before the Senate on Wednesday, IG Kanja admitted that the first communication put out by the police was incorrect and that disciplinary action would be taken against officers found to have issued the misleading statement.

Senators had pressed him to formally withdraw the inaccurate statement, but Kanja said the outcome of ongoing investigations by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) would guide the disciplinary process.

“On that question, let me say this: if in the ongoing investigations by IPOA we get to know the truth, the officers who issued the initial report that we relied upon, then they will have disciplinary proceedings as provided for by the regulations, for providing incorrect information. So we are awaiting the outcome of the investigations of IPOA,” the IG said.

However, the Senate session turned tense, with Speaker Amason Kingi urging the police chief to give a clearer and more direct response.

“Inspector-General, you need to respond to that question in a better way,” Kingi said.

'Give us the truth'

“The reason why you are attracting a lot of interventions is because you do not want to open up and tell the senators what exactly happened. We are here to hear the truth. Just give us the truth, and there will be minimal interventions.”

Senator Moses Kajwang had demanded clarity over why the police issued an official statement claiming Ojwang had died after hitting his head on a wall, only for a post-mortem report to later contradict that narrative.

“This was the question by Sen Kajwang: That through your official communication, the first information you put out there was that the young man hit his head against the wall and therefore died,” Kingi explained.

“Later on, after the autopsy was carried out, it was found to be totally different. The question was: having put the communication to the public, would you withdraw that particular communication and proceed to apologise to the nation? If you are unable to do that, that’s also an answer.”

Apology

Following the pressure, Kanja retracted the statement and issued an apology.

“Going by the report that we have gotten from IPOA, that it is true he did not hit his head against the wall—but that is the report that we had from the word go—I tender my apology on behalf of the National Police Service because of that information,” he said.

Government Pathologist, Dr Bernard Midia, who conducted the post-mortem alongside a representative from the family, said Ojwang died from multiple soft tissue injuries that were not self-inflicted.

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• Senators force IG Kanja to apologise over false police report on Ojwang’s death in custody
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“When we examined the pattern of the injury, especially on the trauma, I found on the head… hitting against a blunt substance like a wall would have a pattern,” Midia said on Tuesday.

“But the bleeds that we found on the scalp… on the skin of the head were spaced, including on the face, sides of the head, and the back of the head.”

Assault

Midia explained that if Ojwang had hit his head on a wall, there would have been a concentrated frontal impact. Instead, the post-mortem revealed injuries to the head, neck, upper limbs, trunk, and lower limbs—indicative of assault.

“There were also multiple soft tissue injuries spread all over the body, including the head, neck, upper limbs and the trunk and lower limbs… these were injuries that were externally inflicted,” he said.

“When we tie up together with other injuries that are well spread on parts of the body, including the upper limbs and the trunk, then this is unlikely to be self-inflicted injury,” Midia concluded.

The initial police report issued on Sunday, June 8, had claimed Ojwang died after hitting his head on the wall of his cell—an account now discredited by the pathologist’s findings.

Ojwang died less than an hour after being booked at the Central Police Station. IPOA is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding his death.