The killing of Kenyan child Samantha Pendo, police brutality and the long wait for justice

Seven years after their young daughter was killed in a brutal northern police operation in Kenya amid post-election tensions, Joseph Olu Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still reeling from the emotions as the case against the alleged officers has been adjourned again.

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

After every delay or small development, the couple is bombarded with calls. Every moment of waiting leads to frustration in their quest for justice.

The family lives in the western city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold where riots erupted in August 2017 amid anger over the results of elections that were eventually re-run due to irregularities.

Their small house was along the road in the Nyalenda informal settlement, where protests took place on August 11, where riot police were deployed.

That night, the couple locked their wooden door and barricaded it with furniture. Around one o’clock in the morning, they heard their neighbors’ doors being broken and some residents being beaten.

Soon, police officers appeared at their door.

“They knocked and kicked me several times (but) I refused to open it,” Mr Abanjo told the BBC, adding that he begged them to spare his family of four.

But the beating continued until officers found a small space through which they threw a canister of tear gas into the one-room house, forcing the family out.

Mr. Abanja says he was ordered to lie down outside the door, after which the beating began.

“They were hitting me on the head, so I put my hands up and they hit me until I couldn’t hold them.”

His wife came out of the house holding Samantha who was breathing heavily from the tear gas and she was not spared either.

“They kept beating me (with oak trees) while I was holding my daughter,” says Ms Achieng.

The next thing she felt was her daughter holding her tightly, “like she was in pain.”

“I turned her around and what came out of her mouth? It was foam.”

She screamed that they had killed her daughter and it was at this point that the beating stopped and Mr Abanjo was ordered to administer first aid.

The child regained consciousness, but was badly hurt.

The couple said officers quickly left and neighbors helped them get Samantha to the hospital. She died after three days in intensive care.

Their search for justice has been long and frustrating, like that of dozens of others caught up in the post-election violence.

Twelve police officers are expected to face charges of murder, rape and torture, but the hearing at which they will be asked to plead has not yet taken place.

One of the lawyers for the victims, Willis Otieno, believes that the delay is due to the lack of political will to restore justice to the victims of the election violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta won re-election later in 2017 – the opposition candidate withdrew from the race. His deputy William Ruta, with whom he later fell out, won the next vote – taking office in September 2022.

“The state is no longer interested in prosecuting the perpetrators, (and) now it’s up to the victims’ advocates — those of us who work with non-governmental organizations and human rights groups to press for charges to be filed and people to be charged,” he says. Mr Otieno BBC.

He accuses the current Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of “acting as a lawyer for the accused”.

“It wasn’t even the defendants who applied to the court for an adjournment, but the DPP applied to the court for an adjournment of the guilty plea,” the lawyer said of the two failed plea attempts last October and November.

The third attempt was due to take place two days ago, but was postponed due to the postponement of the presiding judge’s hearing – and postponed until the end of the month.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office (ODPP) told the BBC it could not honor a request for comment, but posted on X that “this case remains one of the most high-profile in recent history, and Baby Pendo’s death symbolizes the tragic results of police brutality during the 2017 post-election unrest.”

But those involved in the case find the delays troubling.

“This case was initiated by the DPP’s office and it was they who approached us a few years ago. They asked us to join a victim support group, which was essentially set up to make sure they had witnesses for them,” Irungu Houghton, head of human rights group Amnesty International Kenya, told the BBC.

After the initial investigations, then-law enforcement official Noordin Hadji initiated a public inquiry into the death of Samantha’s baby. The judge found the policemen guilty.

The prosecutor subsequently ordered further investigations into other cases resulting from the August 2017 police operation and brought in independent constitutional investigators, civil society and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The investigation uncovered evidence that the DPP said pointed to “the systematic use of violence, including murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, against civilians, all of which constitute serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity.” humanity”.

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

Among those to be charged are commanders who are believed to be responsible because of their responsibilities as senior officers – another first for Kenya.

In September 2023, a new DDP, Ranson M., took office. Ingong, but since then there has been little to no progress in the matter.

There appears to be a “reluctance to try to prosecute this case”, says Mr Houghton.

Mr Otieno says lawyers for the victims may consider seeking justice through private prosecution or going to the East African Court or the International Criminal Court if delays continue.

Samantha’s parents support this idea, because without justice they say they can’t heal – every delay reopens their wounds.

“It doesn’t matter how I do it, but I will make sure I get justice,” says Mr Abanjo, now 40 and a tuk-tuk taxi driver.

“Because they took away something that was so precious to me — she was everything to me, that girl I named after my mom.”