The inhumane treatment that was recieved by Martin Koome, a miraa trader killed by former Ruaraka OCS Nahashon Mutua lead to his death. This according to High Court Judge Stella Mutuku.
Nahashon Mutua has been sentenced to death after he was found guilty of murder following the death of Koome back in 2013.
High court Judge Stella Mutuku on Thursday said the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Koome is therefore headed for the ropes but just how did it get to this point?
In May 2014, International Justice Mission (IJM) filed a complaint with the Independent Policing Oversight Authority about Mutua’s near-successful bid to frame Kevin Odhiambo, one of Koome’s cellmates.
Koome was arrested on the night of December 19, 2013.
He had returned to his Baba Dogo home drunk. A furious argument erupted with his wife, Peninah Kaumbutho.
Koome grabbed his two-month-old baby and threatened to jump out a window and kill himself and his child.
His wife raised the alarm and called for help from neighbours. They poured into the house and some called the police.
The police officer who responded arrested Koome and insisted on taking him to the police station, despite his wife’s pleas that it was only a domestic argument and they only needed to calm Koome down.
“We must go with him, we will hear about it at the station,” the officer told her as they left with Koome.
At the station, Koome refused to get into the cell, saying he had not committed any crime and only argued with his wife.
Junior officers sought intervention from OCS Mutua. Then the torture and beatings began.
“At about 11pm the same day, Mutua took Koome out to the yard and thoroughly assaulted him with a ridged steel pipe,” the court record shows.
The summary of the witnesses’ statements supplied by IJM indicate that Peninah followed her husband to the station that night, with the baby on her back.
She was breastfeeding at the desk when she heard her husband tell the police to stop beating him. “I then heard a commotion and the beating lasted about three minutes,” she said.
The following morning, she and her sister-in-law Ann Manyara went back to the station, but they were told Koome had been taken to Kenyatta National Hospital. The two then went to KNH.
The records indicated that
“At the Hospital they found him on a stretcher, his face swollen and he had wounds and deep cuts. He could not speak. He died at 8.30pm on December 20, 2013,”
Some of Koome’s cellmates later became prosecution witnesses.
They recalled how Mutua shoved Koome’s head into a large barrel filled with water, to simulate drowning. All the while he beat him, they said.
Further, IJM records show that a protected witness testified that he was arrested over allegations of robbery and put in the cells at around 10.30pm.
“While in the cells he heard a voice say, “Mtu ana rape mtoto wake (Someone rapes his child”). He said the person said to have raped the child was ordered to enter into a drum (barrel),” the testimony said.
The witness could hear bubbling sounds as though somebody was drowning.