Kenya’s baby Samantha Pendo killing, police brutality and the long wait for justice

Seven years after their daughter was killed in a brutal police operation in Kenya in the middle of the night during the post-election conflict, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still upset that the case against the suspect is being delayed. .

“It’s a wound that will never go away,” Ms Achieng, a hotel worker, told the BBC of the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo, who died of a fractured skull and internal bleeding.

After every stop or small development, the family is flooded with calls. Every moment of hope leads to frustration in their quest for justice.

The family lives in the western part of the city of Kisumu – an opposition stronghold where riots erupted in August 2017 amid anger over election results that were also marred by instability.

Their small house was on the side of the road in the Nyalenda area which was the scene of protests on August 11 when riot police were deployed.

That night the family locked their wooden door and covered it with furniture. In the middle of the night, they heard their neighbors’ doors being kicked down and some of the people inside being beaten.

It wasn’t long before the police arrived at their door.

“He knocked and kicked several times [but] I refused to open it,” the family told the BBC, pleading with them not to destroy their family of four.

But the beating continued until the police found a small gap in which they threw a canister of tear gas into the one-room house, and the family chased away.

Mr. Abanja says he ordered them to sleep outside the door and then the beating began.

“They were going for my head so I put my hands up, and they beat my hands until they couldn’t hold them anymore.”

His wife came out of the house holding Samantha who was breathing hard due to the tear gas, she also did not let him go.

“He continued to beat me [with clubs] while I was holding my daughter,” Achieng said.

The next thing he heard was his daughter holding him “as if she was in pain”.

“I turned him over and what was coming out of his mouth? It was foam.”

He screamed that he was going to kill his son and immediately the beating stopped and Abanja’s father was ordered to give first aid.

The child came but was seriously injured.

The couple says officers quickly left and neighbors helped them rush Samantha to the hospital. He died three days later in intensive care.

Their quest for justice has been long and frustrating, as have many other victims of post-election violence.

12 police officers are expected to be charged with murder, rape and torture – but the trial at which this will take place, where they will be asked to enter a plea, has not yet taken place.

One of the lawyers of the people affected by the accident, Willys Otieno, believes that the delay was caused by the lack of political will to give justice to the people affected by the election violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta won another election later in 2017 – his rival was out of the contest. His deputy William Ruto, with whom he later clashed, won the next vote – taking office in September 2022.

“The government is no longer interested in prosecuting criminals. [and] it is now left to the advocates of the victims – those of us who work with NGOs and human rights organizations to press for the cases to be registered and the accused to be prosecuted,” Mr Otieno told the BBC.

He accuses the current DPP of “acting like a lawyer for the accused”.

“It’s not even the accused who asked the court to suspend the case – it’s the DPP who asked the court to suspend the sentence,” said the lawyer referring to the two failed trials in October and November last year.

A third attempt was due to take place two days ago but was postponed due to a change of judge – and will be rescheduled for the end of the month.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) told the BBC that it could not respond to a request, but wrote on X that “this case remains one of the most serious in recent history, while the death of Mwana Pendo represents the sad consequences of police brutality during the 2017 elections.” “.

But those involved in the case find the delay difficult.

“The office of the DPP party initiated this case, and they are the ones who came to us a few years ago, asking us to join the support group for the poor which was established to ensure that they have their witnesses. case,” Irungu Houghton, head of rights group Amnesty International Kenya, told the BBC.

After the first investigation, the DPP at the time, Nurdin Hajji, launched a public inquiry into the death of Samantha. The judge found the police guilty.

After that, the prosecutor ordered a further investigation into some of the crimes that occurred as a result of the police work in August 2017, and brought in independent investigative agencies, government agencies and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The investigation found evidence that the DPP said showed “the systematic use of violence, killing, torture, rape and other forms of violence against civilians, which are serious violations of human rights and crimes against people”.

In October 2022, the prosecution requested that the suspects be charged, for the first time in Kenya’s history under the International Crimes Act.

Those likely to be prosecuted include officials who are held responsible because of their positions as high-ranking officials – another first for Kenya.

In September 2023 a new DDP took office, Renson M Ingonga, but there has been little movement in the case since then.

There appears to be “reluctance to try this case,” Houghton said.

Mr. Otieno said the lawyers of the people affected by the accident can consider seeking justice through a public prosecutor or going to the East African Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court if the delay continues.

Samantha’s parents support this idea because without justice they say they cannot recover – any delay will reopen their wounds.

It doesn’t matter how I do it, but I will make sure that I do justice,” says Mr. Abanja, who is now 40 years old and makes a living as a tuk-tuk driver.

“Because she took away the most precious thing from me – she was everything to me, the little girl I named after my mother.”