IPOA wants acting IG Kanja, Nairobi commissioner Bungei arrested over police conduct during protests

IPOA commissioner John Waiganjo said on Wednesday that the authority is vexed over the unprofessionalism exhibited by police officers as they engage protesters in the last four weeks and is now escalating the matter to the Judiciary.

"We are very frustrated when we do not get information from the police commanders," he said speaking on Citizen TV's Daybreak show.

"That is why we are calling out the Nairobi police commander Adamson Bungei, the acting IG and we are saying that if we are not going to get this information we are going to petition the court to issue a warrant for their arrest because they carry the biggest responsibility."

According to Waiganjo, the authority has been monitoring the devices officers have been using to engage both peaceful and rogue protesters including live bullets and lethal teargas.

He questioned why officers have been concealing their identities by covering their faces, hiding their names and badges, arguing that they clearly have ill intent whenever they are deployed to the streets.

"It is clear that the police are breaking the law. We are suspecting that there is a specific unit that is being sent out there apart from the ordinary deployment to go and commit atrocities," he said.

"We have monitored the tooling of the officers, we have seen the substances that they are using, we know that they are not well prepared, they are using live bullets and you saw instead of using water canons they are using some other substance which we have also sought to be provided with."

Mr. Waiganjo further intimated that the authority has forwarded four files to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP) with watertight evidence of holding those involved in the killings culpable.

He however clarified that investigations into the death of Rex Masai, the first protester to be shot dead by police, are still ongoing.

"We have so far forward four files to the ODPP, Rex's is not there, because we do not want to do a shoddy job. The matter is still not escalated to court," he noted.

Following Tuesday's anti-government demonstrations, the death toll of Kenyans who have lost their lives during the protests rose to 50 as reported by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) all attributed to the use of brutal force by the police.

The commission also recorded 82 more injuries, taking the number to 574. There were 77 more arrests, pushing the tally to 1,201 since the protests began.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior and National Administration has announced that it has recommended the establishment of the office of the Coroner General to investigate deaths, including those resulting from police action.