Kenya: Interior no. 2 gets jail for defying court order

NAIROBI, Kenya

The number two at Kenya’s Interior Ministry was sentenced to three months in prison late Tuesday for failing to pay a torture victim.

Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho had failed to obey a court order directing his office to pay a torture victim, Michael Mahugu, 2.65 million Kenya shillings (roughly $26,000) in compensation.

On Monday, when Kibicho ignored a court summons to appear about the matter, his lawyers asked Kenya’s High Court to excuse him for attending government meetings.

But on Tuesday he was also absent, and without explanation, and Justice George Otunga proceeded to issue his ruling.

Otunga directed Joseph Boinett, the inspector general of police, to immediately arrest and imprison the permanent secretary for a period of three months.

Mahugu is among Kenyans who claim to have been tortured by a special branch of the police at Nairobi’s Nyayo House skyscraper facility. The building currently houses numerous government offices and was known by some as the “Nyayo House torture chambers” for its basement detention facilities.

Some of the detainees have been compensated by the state.

Reporting by Andrew Wasike; Writing by Marc Chenault;