Albert Ojwang: Man dies hours after arrest by DCI over social media post

A man died hours after officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) arrested him over a social media post.

Albert Ojwang was picked up by police officers in Kakot, Homa Bay County on Saturday afternoon, who said they were probing him over a post he allegedly made on the social media platform X.

They later drove him to Nairobi and detained him at the Central Police Station.

However, when his family arrived at the police station on Sunday to follow up on the case, they found he was dead.

“We awaited his arraignment in court on Monday so we can follow up the case from there. But today, his father who came to follow up after the arrest informed me his son was dead. It is quite unfortunate,” a lawyer for the family told reporters outside the police station.

They said police told them Albert’s body had been taken to City Mortuary.

“One does not deserve to lose their life; there is the law and we expected the boy to be processed normally and charged then if found guilty, punished according to the law,” the lawyer added.

Meshack Opiyo, Albert’s father, broke down as he narrated how his only child was arrested at their home while having lunch with the family after returning from the farm.

“He was arrested and taken to Mawego police station, then later at night, he was transferred to Nairobi. The arresting police told me Albert had insulted a senior person on X,” Opiyo said.

Upon arrival in Nairobi on Sunday, he said officers at Central Police Station told him his son died in hospital from self-inflicted injuries after hitting himself against the wall.

Mr Opiyo cast doubt on the police’s claims, calling for an urgent investigation.

A Sunday police report obtained by Citizen Digital shows that the incident was filed at the Central Police Station as suicide, in which an officer on a routine visit to the cell Albert was locked in found him “with blood oozing from his head.”

“They immediately rushed the prisoner to Mbagathi Hospital for treatment where he was pronounced dead on arrival,” the report reads.

Police added that preliminary investigations showed that Albert, who was booked in for the offence of false publication, sustained head injuries “by hitting his head severally against the wall inside the cell.”