Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Faith Odhiambo has lifted the lid on some of the tactics police officers allegedly use to frustrate civilians and even lawyers when following up on cases of arrested persons.
Speaking on Tuesday during the launch of the International Justice Mission (IJM) Baseline Report on Police Accountability, Odhiambo claimed that police often tamper with Occurrence Books (OBs) to conceal or delay justice.
One of the tricks, she said, involves deliberately misspelling the names of suspects in the OBs.
“I discovered a new trick is to register people in the occurrence books under different names. If the suspect is called Silas, they will write Cyrus or Peter, and then insist it is not the same person,” she explained.
According to Odhiambo, such tactics make it difficult for relatives, friends, or lawyers to trace suspects unless they push persistently and return several times to demand clarification.
She also accused officers of altering the time of arrest to buy more time. In some cases, she said, OBs were updated almost 24 hours after the actual arrest, allowing police to unlawfully hold individuals for up to 48 hours before presenting them in court.
The IJM report backed her claims, revealing that at least half of Kenyans have experienced some form of police harassment.
Corruption and extortion (55.8 per cent) and harassment (54.7 per cent) were identified as the most common complaints.
“Sometimes they even refuse to record the arrest immediately so that by the time the name appears in the OB, many hours have already passed. This gives them cover to keep someone in custody longer than the law allows,” Odhiambo added.
Kenya’s Constitution under Article 49(1)(f) is clear: an arrested person must be presented in court within 24 hours. If that period lapses on a weekend or public holiday, the law provides that the suspect should be arraigned the next working day.
Any delay without a court order is unconstitutional and can jeopardise a case, with the possibility of charges being dismissed.
At arraignment, a suspect is either formally charged, informed of the reason for continued detention, or released.
