The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) has disclosed that it is pushing the judiciary to issue warrants of arrest against senior police officers.
Speaking on Citizen TV's Daybreak show, IPOA commissioner John Waiganjo noted that the commanders were not willing to cooperate in the investigations into the police conduct during the recent anti-government protests.
Waiganjo disclosed that IPOA officers faced hostility during their investigations and they were not accorded any information by the police.
"We are working under very tough conditions. I think in the lifetime of IPOA, we have not seen the level of uncooperation we are seeing now from police commanders and senior police officers. We have sometimes have to go back to them for instance to get certain documentations that we cannot move without.
"But we have since found a very hostile environment where our officers when they go out there are not getting any information and when we give out summons, they are not responded to. We are going out of our way now to push the matter to the judiciary to issue even warrants of arrest against senior commanders so that they can come and give us information," the IPOA commissioner stated.
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Waiganjo added that the law allowed the authority to escalate the matter to the courts as the public demanded action.
"The law allows us to escalate the matter to court for warrants of arrest and we have a tough task particularly in Nairobi because many deaths have been recorded there, exceeding 22 deaths. So if we don't get information and cooperation from the senior police officers then it will appear like we are doing nothing," he added.
His remarks come after IPOA stated that it was unable to access eight victims who were allegedly abducted by security agencies during the recent anti-government protests.
In a statement on Friday, July 12, IPOA said it had received a total of 10 complaints of unlawful arrests, abductions, and disappearances.
“On its own motion, IPOA has so far registered 10 complaints of unlawful arrests, abductions, and disappearances which are at different stages of analysis and investigations,” read the statement in part.
