AG should resign, police chief be sacked, says UN official

By Cyrus Ombati and Isaac Ongiri

Attorney General Amos Wako should resign and Police Commissioner Maj–Gen Hussein Ali be sacked, that was verdict of the UN Special Rapporteur Mr Philip Alston.

Alston who released a preliminary report on extrajudicial executions in Kenya, said the Attorney General has played a role in encouraging the impunity that exists in Kenya.

“The Attorney-General should resign so that the integrity of the office can be restored,” declared the UN Special Rapporteur.

He further said, “Effective leadership on this issue can only come from the very top, and sweeping reforms to the policing sector should begin with the immediate dismissal of the Police Commissioner,” he said at the UN Complex in Gigiri, Nairobi, on Wednesday.

Alston ruled that the police killings in Kenya are systematic, widespread and carefully planned being executed.

He said the executors of the brutal and merciless killings acted at will and with utter impunity on the advice of their seniors.

Death Squads, Alston said were set up on the orders of senior policemen to exterminate members of the outlawed Mungiki sect.

The UN human rights expert who toured Nairobi, Central, Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza Provinces called on President Kibaki to acknowledge the widespread problem of extrajudicial executions in Kenya.

He wants the President to initiate systemic reforms within the police force as away of doing away with criminal activities within the force.

According to Alston the government should set up a civilian police oversight body and that the government should centralize records of police killings.

Further, he told the government that an independent Department of Public Prosecutions should be put in place to replace the current one.

He also recommended thorough vetting of the police to free it from officers who have involved themselves in criminal and illegal killings.

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