There was a thick silence at the Milimani High Court on Wednesday morning when a former Kayole Officer Commanding Station (OCS) struggled to hold back tears as he testified in a murder case that has again brought the spotlight on police conduct.
The retired officer had taken the stand to testify in a case against six Kayole Police Station officers accused of killing 28-year-old Wycliffe Vincent Owuor a man once linked to the 2019 Ksh72 million Nairobi West ATM robbery.
But as he began recounting his time leading one of Nairobi’s most dangerous stations, the weight of his memories became too much to bear.
“In two months, I lost 13 officers,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Thirteen all killed by robbers. Even two traffic officers killed on the road while on duty.”
The courtroom fell quiet, the air thick with emotion. The trial was brought to a standstill as the ex-commander fought tears, clearly shaken by the brutality that had marked his reign.
The officer testified in court that on March 24, 2020, the day Owuor was killed police got a report of armed men troubling residents near Kayole Junction. Six officers were sent to the area. “They ordered the suspects to surrender,” he testified. “But the gunmen opened fire first. The officers fired back and killed one suspect and two others escaped on a motorcycle.”
That suspect, police later admitted, was Owuor. But his family and witnesses have long challenged that version of events. They claim he was not killed in a firefight but assassinated after he was detained and handcuffed.
The IPOA also launched an investigation, which after a while concluded that evidence pointed to murder and not self-defense. The Director of Public Prosecution also agreed with this conclusion, leading to the six police officers being arrested and brought to trial.
To Owuor’s family, the courtroom is a place of hope and pain a place where they are hoping to find justice for a son they say was denied his chance to start all over again.
And to the seasoned OCS, it was a chance to re-examine the impossible choices of life in uniform between serving and keeping on alive in a world where danger often threatens around every bend.
As he stepped down from the witness stand, his shoulders slumping, his eyes welling up. Over in the corner, the courtroom was still a rare moment of shared humanity in a trial that continues to push Kenya’s troubled relationship with police accountability.
The trial continues.