Police Execution Of Simon Matheri Ikere: What Were The Lies All About? | Police brutality in Kenya | Secret police methods in Kenya | Human rights violation by Kenya Police

Kenyans may have gotten a rare glimpse into police methods one day when the Kenya police insisted on peddling fiction, despite the fact that there were numerous witnesses at Athi River who saw and heard exactly what happened as one of Kenya's most wanted violent gangsters was gunned down outside his house. Not to mention photographs that communicated more than a thousand words and spoke loud and clear.

The widely circulated photo of Simon Matheri Ikere. Does he not look so innocent and the sort of polite, handsome guy you wouldn't mind your daughter going out with? Police accuse him of rape, murder, bank robberies etc. His trade mark was introducing himself before shooting his hapless victims for no apparent reason

TV footage at the scene and press photographs clearly showed Simon Matheri Ikere felled with his hands behind him, as if he had been handcuffed.

Ikere's wife told journalists how her husband had stepped out of the house with his hands on his head and wearing nothing else but boxer shorts.

What followed was, surrounded by dozens of heavily armed policemen, Ikere was handcuffed with his hands behind him while police confirmed that it was really him and not somebody else. He was then shot through the head at point blank range and fell on his side from the impact of the bullet that killed him instantly. It appears death came a little unexpectedly unlike in the case of many of his victims whom it is said Matheri would introduce himself to before shooting to death.

For the purpose of press photos, the handcuffs were then removed, but the hands stiffly remained behind Matheri's back.

The police version of what happened was that Matheri came out with a gun in his hands and in front of the policemen tried to cock his gun. It was while he was doing this, that he was shot. Actually it is highly unlikely that the police found any weapons at the Matheri house. And why would Matheri want to cock his gun while outside when he would have done it inside and come out firing?

One of the fascinating things about police accounts with gangsters is that they have always lacked imagination. Good lying calls for at least a little imagination. For instance, for years the police story I numerous encounters with thugs has always been as follows;

The thugs spotted the police and defied orders to surrender by firing at the police. "Our boys then returned the fire," the always say.

In fact on numerous occasions innocent, unarmed Kenyans have been killed in this way. However the escalation of crime in Kenya today is such that in Ikere's case most Kenyans clearly support the action taken by the police in killing this thug who hardly ever showed any mercy to his victims. Kenyans at the scene of the shooting were clearly delighted at qht had happened, not to mention some of those who viewed the body at the City Mortuary telling journalists that they were going to slaughter a goat to celebrate the felling of Simon Matheri Ikere.

So why do the police insist on peddling their unimaginative fictional account of the events that took place in Athi River?

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