Kenya’s baby Samantha Pendo killing, police brutality and the long wait for justice

Seven years after their child daughter was killed throughout a brutal midnight operation by police in Kenya at a time of post-election rigidity, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are nonetheless uncooked with emotion because the case in opposition to the alleged officers concerned has as soon as once more been delayed.

“It’s a scar that may by no means fade away,” Ms Achieng, a lodge employee, tells the BBC in regards to the demise of six-month-old Samantha Pendo who died with a damaged cranium and of inner bleeding.

After every postponement or small improvement, the couple are swamped with calls. Every second of expectation results in disappointment of their seek for justice.

The household dwell within the western metropolis of Kisumu – an opposition stronghold the place riots broke out in August 2017 amid anger in regards to the outcomes of an election that was ultimately re-run due to irregularities.

Their small dwelling was alongside a highway within the Nyalenda casual settlement that witnessed protests on 11 August the place anti-riot police have been deployed.

That evening the couple locked their wood door and barricaded it with furnishings. At round midnight, they heard their neighbours’ doorways being damaged down and a number of the occupants being crushed.

It was not lengthy earlier than cops arrived at their door.

“They knocked and kicked it a number of instances [but] I refused to open,” Mr Abanja tells the BBC, including that he pleaded with them to spare his household of 4.

However the battering continued till the officers discovered a small area by way of which they threw a tear-gas canister into the one-roomed home, forcing the household out.

Mr Abanja says he was ordered to lie down exterior the door after which the beating began.

“They have been going for my head so I held my fingers up, they usually beat my fingers till they might not maintain any extra.”

His spouse got here out of the home holding Samantha, who was having problem respiration due to the tear fuel, and was not spared both.

“They went forward beating me [with clubs] whereas I used to be holding my daughter,” Ms Achieng says.

The following factor she felt was her daughter holding her tight “as if she was in ache”.

“I turned her and what was coming exterior her mouth? It was foam.”

She shouted that they’d killed her daughter and it was at that second the beatings stopped and Mr Abanja was ordered to manage first support.

The newborn got here to however was badly injured.

The couple say officers then swiftly left and neighbours helped them rush Samantha to hospital. She died after three days in intensive care.

Their quest for justice has been lengthy and irritating, like that of dozens of others caught up within the post-poll violence.

Twelve cops have been anticipated to be charged with homicide, rape and torture – however the listening to at which it will occur, when they are going to be requested to enter a plea, has but to occur.

One of many victims’ legal professionals, Willys Otieno, reckons that the delay is because of an absence of political will to ship justice to victims of election violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta went on to win the election re-run later in 2017 – the opposition candidate withdrew from the competition. His deputy William Ruto, with whom he later fell out, was victorious within the subsequent vote – taking workplace in September 2022.

“The state is now not inquisitive about prosecuting the perpetrators, [and] it’s now left to victims’ counsels – these of us who work with non-governmental organisations and human rights teams to place stress for the costs to be registered and the accused individuals to go to trial,” Mr Otieno tells the BBC.

He accuses the present director of public prosecutions (DPP) of “appearing like an legal professional of the accused”.

“It’s not even the accused individuals who’ve utilized to court docket for adjournment – it’s the DPP who has utilized to court docket to adjourn the plea taking,” the lawyer stated about two failed makes an attempt at taking a plea final October and November.

The third try was meant to occur two days in the past however was postponed as a result of switch of the presiding decide – and has been rescheduled for the tip of the month.

The Workplace of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) informed the BBC it couldn’t deal with a request for remark, however posted on X that “the case stays one of the vital high-profile in current historical past, with Child Pendo’s demise symbolising the tragic outcomes of police brutality through the 2017 post-election unrest”.

However these concerned within the case discover the delays troubling.

“It was the Workplace of the DPP that initiated this case, they usually have been those that reached out to us a number of years in the past. They requested us to affix a sufferer help group that was primarily established to guarantee that they’d have witnesses for his or her case,” Irungu Houghton, head of the rights group Amnesty Worldwide Kenya, tells the BBC.

After preliminary investigations, the DPP on the time, Nurdin’ Hajji, initiated a public inquest into the demise of child Samantha. The decide discovered the police culpable.

Subsequently, the general public prosecutor ordered additional investigations into different instances ensuing from the police operation of August 2017, and introduced in unbiased constitutional investigative our bodies, civil society and the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights.

The probe uncovered proof which the DPP stated pointed to “the systematic use of violence, together with killing, torture, rape and different types of sexual violence, in opposition to civilians, all of which represent critical human rights violations and crimes in opposition to humanity”.

In October 2022, the prosecutor then sought to have the suspects charged, for the primary time in Kenya’s historical past below its Worldwide Crimes Act.

These to be charged embrace commanders deemed liable due to their accountability as superior officers – one other first for Kenya.

In September 2023 a brand new DPP took workplace, Renson M Ingonga, however there was little motion within the case since.

There seems to be “an unwillingness to attempt to prosecute this case,” says Mr Houghton.

Mr Otieno says the victims’ legal professionals might contemplate in search of justice through a personal prosecution or going to the East African Court docket of Justice or the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) if the delays proceed.

Kisumu governor and opposition chief Peter Anyango’ Nyong’o has now appealed to the chief justice to take up the matter and “discover out instantly whether or not somebody or teams of individuals are sabotaging this case to guard some individuals”.

If not, he agrees the ICC may very well be the best way to go: “We could also be compelled to jot down to the ICC to maneuver in ought to the native courts proceed to delay the instances, as a result of justice delayed is justice denied.”

Samantha’s mother and father help this concept as with out justice they are saying they can’t heal – every postponement reopens their wounds.

“It does not matter how I am going to do it, however I am going to guarantee that I’ve justice,” says Mr Abanja, who’s now 40 and makes a dwelling as a tuk-tuk taxi driver.

“As a result of they took away one thing that’s a lot treasured of me – she was every little thing to me, that little lady I named after my mum.”