Kenyan police have arrested eight officers over the escape of 13 people, including an alleged serial killer, from Nairobi police cells, an official said.
The eight, among them the head of the station, were on duty during the escape, the acting inspector general of police, Gilbert Masengeli, said.
“Our preliminary investigation indicates that the escape was facilitated by insiders,” he told journalists at Gigiri police station, where the 13 had been held. “Any person found culpable will face the full force of law.”
The escapers included Collins Khalusha, 33, who was arrested in July after dismembered bodies were found at an abandoned quarry in Embakasi South, Nairobi.
Police in July said he had confessed to killing 42 women over the past two years and throwing their bodies into the quarry, which is used as a dump. At least 10 sacks with body parts were removed from the site, they said.
“We are dealing with a vampire, a psychopath,” Mohamed Amin, the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said at the time.
But when Khalusha was presented in court last month, his lawyer, John Ndegwa, said his client had been tortured into confessing.
The escape was discovered at about 5am on Tuesday, when the officer in charge and the station’s canteen manager went to serve the prisoners breakfast, a police report said.
Police said Khalusha and the other detainees, Eritreans held for allegedly being in Kenya illegally, escaped by cutting a security wire mesh at a “basking bay” – a place where detainees can get fresh air – and climbing a perimeter wall.
Khalusha last appeared in court on Friday, where the magistrate ordered he be held for 30 more days for police to complete investigations.
The bodies were discovered during anti-government demonstrations that started in June, during which tens of Kenyans have been reported missing.
The findings at the quarry, which is about 100 metres across the street from a police station, renewed attention on Kenyan police, who have long been accused of extrajudicial killings.
Human rights organisations, as well as the Independent Police Oversight Authority, a civilian watchdog for police work, say they are investigating the deaths.
The escapes come six months after Kevin Kangethe, a Kenyan wanted in the US for murder, fled barefoot from another Nairobi police station after officers let him out of his cell to speak to his lawyer. Police rearrested him a few days later.
Masengeli, the acting inspector general of police, said police have launched a manhunt for the 13 missing prisoners.
Source: theguardian.com
