• The incident was confirmed by Lamu County police commander William Samoei who said the man used his waist shawl to commit suicide.
• The family is however not convinced that the man killed himself and are calling on the Independent Police Oversight Authority-IPOA to get to the bottom of the matter.
Image: The Star
Lamu police have begun investigations into an incident where a 46-year-old man allegedly committed suicide in a police cell.
The deceased who has been identified as Mgana Seja was arrested last Sunday after his wife reported him on grounds of causing malicious damage to her property.
He was being held at the Mokowe Police station in Lamu West.
The incident was confirmed by Lamu County police commander William Samoei who said the man used his waist shawl to commit suicide.
“He was arrested at around 4.25pm and put in the cells. However, at around 6pm during the change of guard, the cell centries found him dead from suicide. He used a shawl he had tied around his waist and tied it to the cell grills. We are investigating," Samoei said.
The commander said they are yet to ascertain the motive behind the man’s actions and urged the family to be patient as the investigations continue.
The deceased had recently been released from the Hindi GK Prison after serving a one year jail term and went to his Kililana village home in Lamu West where he picked a quarrel with his wife.
It is during the quarrel and ensuing chaos that the man destroyed household items belonging to his wife prompting her to report him to the nearby police station.
A postmortem on the deceased is set to be conducted this week to ascertain the exact cause of his death.
The body is at the Mpeketoni subcounty morgue.
“The postmortem shall take place at the same hospital. Let’s be patient as the police unravel this,” the police boss said.
The family of the deceased is, however, not convinced that the man killed himself and are calling on the Independent Police Oversight Authority-IPOA to get to the bottom of the matter.
His cousin Salim Mwingo said they are in need of answers on how their kin would commit suicide in a span of less than two hours after he was arrested in a cell guarded by police.
“We are calling on IPOA to help us on this. We just need answers. We also need help to get the postmortem done as we can’t afford it. The span during which this happened is very questionable to us,” Mwingo said.
The Muslims for Human Rights-MUHURI Rapid Response Officer Francis Auma accused police of negligence over the suicide seeing as it happened within a police station full of officers who should have noticed.
He said the Coast region has continued to record an increased number of questionable suicides of suspects inside police cells.
Auma said the latest incident in Lamu smells of foul play and said the organisation was willing to fund the postmortem to ascertain the cause of death.
"There is need for us to rule out any foul play and prove that the police didn’t do anything and that in fact, he killed himself. Before that, it remains a suspicious death in our eyes," Auma said.
"If it is indeed true, they still have to answer for negligence and tell us how a man commits suicide when they are around and can’t stop it,” he added.
He revealed that three such cases have also been recently reported in Kilifi, particularly at Kaloleni Police Station and Mombasa County.
“If its negligence, the officers must be charged because it’s their job to ensure safety of suspects in their custody. They must ensure these people stay alive to face the law,” he said.