By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A post-mortem has indicated that a Kenyan national who died in police custody last week was assaulted and hit on the head, a situation believed to have caused his death.
This contradicts the claims by the police that Albert Ojwang “sustained head injuries after hitting his head against a cell wall” while he was in custody.
Mr Ojwang, 31, a blogger, was detained following a complaint by the deputy police chief, who accused him of tarnishing his name on social media.
“The cause of death is very clear: head injury, neck compression and other injuries spread all over the body that are pointing towards assault,” state pathologist Bernard Midia said.
His death has sparked widespread outrage in Kenya, with young people staging street protests, while rights groups are demanding accountability.
A digital content creator who microblogged on X and Facebook on topical political and social issues, Ojwang was arrested in Homa Bay, a town in western Kenya, on Friday.
He was detained over a post on X that was allegedly critical of Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat.
He was subsequently transferred over 350 km to the capital, Nairobi, and locked at the Central Police Station on Saturday.
Police said he was later found unconscious in his cell with self-inflicted injuries.
But an autopsy, conducted by five pathologists who released a unanimous report, revealed that Mr Ojwang had severe head injuries and suffered neck compression and multiple soft tissue trauma.
Dr. Midia, who led the team of pathologists, said that Mr Ojwang did not hit himself on the wall, as police had said in a statement on Sunday.
He said if Mr Ojwang had done this, the pattern of injuries would have been different, and frontal bleeding on the head would be seen.
“But the bleeds that we found on the scalp… on the skin of the head were spaced, including on the face, sides of the head and the back of the head,” Dr. Midia said at a press conference.
“There were also multiple soft tissue injuries spread all over the body, including the head, neck, upper limbs and the trunk and lower limbs… these were injuries that were externally inflicted,” he added.
Mr Ojwang’s father, Meshack Ojwang, has appealed to President William Ruto to help him get justice for his son.
“Help me as a taxpayer. The officers who picked up my son saw our home was humble and assumed we didn’t matter,” the father said.
Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga has condemned Mr Ojwang’s “horrifying” death, saying it added to a long list of “young and defenceless Kenyans whose lives have been taken too soon, in brutal and senseless circumstances, at the hands of the police”.
Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja has also suspended several officers who were on duty at the time of Mr Ojwang’s death.
