• Recent cases include the Sh72 million Nairobi ATM heist, Equity Bank, Moyale airstrip heist and GSU officer’s murder at Wilson Airport.
• Last week, three cops nabbed alongside a Cameroonian for allegedly robbing two people of Sh6 million at a hotel in Eastleigh.
Image: FILE
Interior CS Fred Matiang’i has defended the Kenya Police Service amid claims of criminal activities involving cops.
The majority of police officers, Matiang’i said, are disciplined, law-abiding and responsible. Only a handful are rogue, he said.
The Cabinet Secretary said that it was wrong to generally profile police officers as rogue.
The government, he noted, has a mechanism to deal with indisciplined officers. “Our police officers are by large disciplined people. Those found to have been involved in criminal activities will be removed from our records and arraigned so that courts determine whether they are guilty or innocent.”
Matiang’i spoke on Monday when he met some Muslim leaders at Jamia mosque in Nairobi.
The CS, who was accompanied by DPP Noordin Haji, IG Police Hillary Mutyambai and National Assembly leader of Majority Aden Duale, made the assertion barely a week after three police officers were seized for allegedly robbing a man violently.
The officers attached to Kayole police station were arrested following a foiled robbery in Eastleigh.
The three are said to have been part of a six-man gang that included a Cameroonian. The criminals stormed a hotel room armed with pistols and demanded that Mohammed Hassan and Abdullahi Yusuf surrender all the money in their possession - $60,000 (Sh6 million).
The victims raised the alarm and police who were on patrol responded only to find the gangsters were fellow officers from Kayole.
Other recent cases include the Sh72 million Nairobi ATM heist, Equity Bank, Moyale Airstrip heist, GSU officer’s murder at Wilson Airport and three DCI officers arrested with fake currency in Busia.
The Muslim leaders, among them Abdulatif Essajee, said they met Matiang’i to express their displeasure over discrimination and oppression of members of their community.
“As a community, we call for coordination and corporation. Establish structures for negotiations and dialogue. We want to work with your offices both at local and national levels,” Essajee told the CS.
The leaders claimed they were being targeted as a community by security agents, citing extrajudicial killings and discrimination among other challenges.
Matiang'i dismissed the discrimination claims, saying the government is committed to protecting and serving all citizens regardless of one's tribe, community, race or religion.
“President Uhuru Kenyatta has instructed us firmly that we implement his vision by managing the country in an inclusive manner. There is no way we can lead people while others feel they are not part of the country,” he said.
He divulged that 80 per cent of registration documents issuance had been achieved after a desk was set aside. The desk had solved the challenges of obtaining birth certificates, national IDs and passports among other documents.
“We have resources to open new registration offices in northern Kenya.”
Matiang’i said the government does not have a policy on extra-judicial killings, adding that suspects should be investigated and not killed.
Security agencies know when to use excessive force, he said. “We have Ipoa and Independent Police Department to conduct investigations involving police officers.”
The CS affirmed the government's committed to cracking down drugs and drug trafficking, gambling, radicalisation and terrorism.
“We have over 30 prominent cases on drugs in the coastal region alone," he said.
Edited by R.Wamochie