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

Seven years after their son was killed in a brutal midnight police raid during Kenya’s post-election tensions, Joseph Olu Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still reeling from yet another delay in the prosecution of the officers involved. .

Hotel worker Mrs Aching told the BBC that six-month-old Samantha Pendo died of a fractured skull and internal bleeding: “It’s a scar that will never go away.”

After every delay or slight development, the pair is swamped with calls. Each waiting period leads to frustration in the search for justice.

The family resides in West Kisumu City. In August 2017, riots erupted in opposition strongholds, fueled by anger over the election results, and the eventual illegal re-run of the election.

Their small house was on a road in the informal settlement of Nyalenda on August 11 when anti-riot police were deployed.

That night, the couple locked their wooden door and surrounded it with furniture. Around midnight, they heard their neighbors’ doors being broken and some of the residents being beaten.

Soon the police arrived at their home.

“They knocked and kicked him many times (but) I refused to open,” Mr Abanja told the BBC, pleading with four men to save his family.

But the beating continued until the officers found a small space, where they threw tear gas into the one-room house and forced the family out.

Mr. Abanja said he was ordered to lie outside the door and 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 any more.”

His wife left the house with Samantha, who was having difficulty breathing due to the tear gas and was unharmed.

“They were holding my son (with clubs) and beating me,” Ms Aching said.

The next thing her son is insisting that she is “sick”.

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

She screamed that they had killed her son and at that point the beating stopped and Mr Abanja was ordered to give first aid.

The baby came but was badly injured.

The couple said officers quickly left and neighbors rushed Samantha to the hospital. She died three days later in intensive care.

For dozens of people caught up in the post-election violence, their quest for justice has been long and frustrating.

Twelve police officers are expected to face charges of murder, rape and torture – but a plea deal has yet to take place.

One of the victims’ lawyers, Willis Otieno, speculated that the delay was due to the lack of political will to bring justice to the victims of the election violence.

In the 2017 re-election, Uhuru Kenyatta won – the opposition candidate dropped out. His ousted deputy William Ruto won the next vote – taking office in September 2022.

“The government is not interested in prosecuting the perpetrators (and) it is now left to the victims’ advocates – we work with NGOs and human rights organizations to press charges and put pressure on the accused. People are going to be brought to justice,” Mr Otieno told the BBC.

He accuses the current Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of being “like a prosecuting attorney”.

“It’s not even the defendants who applied for the adjournment of the trial – it was the DPP who applied to the court to postpone the appeal,” the lawyer said of the two failed attempts last October and November.

The third trial was originally scheduled to take place two days ago but was postponed due to the transfer of the presiding judge – and rescheduled for the end of the month.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions told the BBC it could not deal with requests for comment, published in the X newspaper: “The case remains one of the most high-profile in recent history. The death of Baby Pendo shows the tragedy of police brutality in the post-election unrest of 2017. results.

But those involved in the case find the delay worrying.

“It was the DPP office that started this case, and they were the ones we spoke to several years ago. They basically asked us to join a victim support group so that they could have witnesses for them. The case,” Irungu Houghton, head of rights group Amnesty International Kenya, told the BBC.

After initial investigations, the then DPP, Noordin Haji, launched a public inquiry into the death of baby Samantha. The judge found the police guilty.

Subsequently, the public prosecutor In August 2010, he ordered further investigations into other cases of police misconduct, bringing in independent constitutional bodies, civil society and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The DPP said in the investigation that the evidence “points to systematic human rights abuses and crimes against humanity against civilians, including murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence.”

In October 2022, prosecutors attempted to prosecute the suspects for the first time in Kenya’s history under international criminal law.

Those charged include commanders held responsible as senior officers – another first for Kenya.

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

Mr Houghton said: “There seems to be a reluctance to prosecute in this case.

Mr. Otieno said the victims’ lawyers may consider seeking justice through private prosecution 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 they say they can’t heal without justice – every delay reopens their wounds.

“It doesn’t matter how I do it, but I will make sure I get justice,” says Mr Abanja, now 40, who ekes out a living as a tuk-tuk taxi driver.

“Because you took away something so precious to me – she was everything to me, that little girl I called after my mother.”