Mum: My son’s body stayed inside car overnight after deadly protests

A woman on Tuesday narrated the harrowing ordeal she underwent with her son who was shot dead by a police officer during the Saba Saba protests in Kitengela, Kajiado county.

Anne Gekunju said she was forced to take with her the body of her son, Brian Kimutai, to her rented house at Miriam’s area within Kitengela township after it was released by protesters who initially took it to Kitengele Subcounty Hospital.

The body stayed inside a private car the whole of Monday night only to be rejected by the same hospital on Tuesday morning. The facility’s management declined to admit it to its mortuary.

“After he was shot dead, we had a hard time with the police because they wanted to take away the body from the Kitengela Subcounty hospital. We had to escape with it because they wanted to take it to remove the bullet lodged,” Gekunju told reporters.

Attempts by the family to plead with the hospital's management to admit the body early Tuesday were futile.

The body was later taken to a local private hospital's mortuary in Athi River, Machakos county.

She said her son who had just completed school, had a grudge with the police officer who shot him dead on Monday.

She said the grudge was about decorations on a motorbike which her son operated in boda boda business within Kitengela township.

Directorate of Criminal Investigations detectives attached to Kitengela, police station visited Kitengela Subcounty Hospital early Tuesday and processed the body before they left.

The body had on Monday evening been ferried to the same health facility by hundreds of rowdy protesters who later manned it.

They denied police access to the facility to process the body.

Kajiado County Human Rights Activists chairman Longton Jamil said he assisted the family for their kin's shooting incident to be recorded at the Kitengela police station and an OB issued to them.

Other sources claimed the protesters withheld the body for fear that police would tamper with it by removing bullets allegedly logged.

"Yesterday, I was on official duty in Kajiado, I wasn't in Kitengela.  I am the one who had been abducted earlier in Kitengela for 32 days. I later got hired by the County Government of Kajiado," Jamil told reporters.

He continued, "I got information that this boy was shot dead yesterday by a prison officer. The family had the body the whole night after it was rejected by Kitengela Subcounty Hospital. Mwili imeanza kuharibika," he said.

Jamil said the deceased had a right for his body to be preserved in the hospital's mortuary as it is a public facility.