Senior police officer and civilans arrested for blogger’s death

Three civilians who had been detained at the Central Police Station, Nairobi, on the night of the blogger Albert Ojwang's death have been arrested in connection with the case, reports the Kenyans. According to the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA), the three were instructed by police officers at the station to torture Ojwang to death while in custody. Although the reasons for their initial arrests have not been made public yet, they are said to have been released shortly after Ojwang's death. Following IPOA's probe, they were re-arrested yesterday Sunday and are being held separately at Kilimani, Muthangari and Kileleshwa Police Stations. According to their lawyer, they had been initially detained on a miscellaneous application and held for five days before being released without formal charges. The trio is set to be arraigned in court today, alongside Officer Commanding Station (OCS) Samson Taalam, who is being held at Lang’ata Police Station. Meanwhile, IPOA continues the search for two more officers captured on CCTV transporting Ojwang to Mbagathi Hospital.

One of the officers has since been identified as the Central Police Station Deputy OCS Samuel Ng’ang’a, who is said to have been on duty during Ojwang's death. IPOA has also revealed it has retrieved critical CCTV footage central to the case, some of which had allegedly been tampered with in what investigators suspect was an attempt to conceal evidence. The investigators now say they are reconstructing events from over 36 hours of footage, including segments believed to show the moments leading up to and following Ojwang’s death. This latest update comes days after IPOA admitted that key security footage subject to the case was unavailable, as the security cameras had been tampered with during a probe by the National Assembly. A CCTV technician, who had seen the installation of all 25 CCTV cameras at the station, was named as the suspect in tampering with the footage and was arrested by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Friday, according to the Kenyans. The man claimed that he had been called by a police officer at Central Police and told to immediately go to the station, upon which he was taken to the office of a senior officer, where the DVR is housed and was allegedly asked to delete footage from 6 and 7 June.

Kenyan President William Ruto condemned the death of  the blogger and ordered an investigation, reports AA Africa. Ruto pledged a swift, transparent, and credible investigation into the matter. Ojwang, a teacher and popular X influencer, was arrested last Saturday in Homa Bay allegedly for posts critical of Deputy Inspector General Eliud Kipkoech Lagat. He was transferred to Nairobi on the same day and died in custody at Central Police Station. A postmortem examination revealed blunt-force trauma and neck compression, contradicting previous police claims that Ojwang's injuries were self-inflicted. Misconduct and criminality within police ranks must be confronted firmly, the President said, ordering the police to co-operate with the  IPOA. Kenya’s police have long been known for brutality and extrajudicial killings, with rights groups calling it a culture of violence and impunity.

Full report on the Kenyans site

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Protests erupted in Nairobi last week over Ojwang death, reports africanews. According to the police, he injured himself by banging his head against the wall in his cell. However, an autopsy conducted on Tuesday indicated that Ojwang was strangled. According to government pathologist Dr Bernard Midia, Ojwang sustained multiple injuries consistent with assault, not self-harm. 'When we examined the pattern of the injury, especially on the trauma, I found it on the head. Hitting against a blunt substance like a wall would have a pattern,' Midia said. Amnesty Kenya also said in a statement that Ojwang’s arrest raised serious questions and that the results of the IPOA report must be made public and any officers found responsible must be held fully accountable. Ojwang’s death continues to spark outrage online and has renewed calls for protests to demand accountability from the government. This incident comes almost one year after several activists and protesters were killed and abducted by the Kenya police during the Finance Bill protests in 2024.

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