Kenyans are up in arms demanding justice after blogger and teacher Albert Ojwang’ was murdered while in police custody.

Ojwang’ died last weekend at the Central Police station, Nairobi hours after being arrested at his rural home in Homa Bay. His arrest came after the Deputy Inspector General of police Eliud Lagat filed a complain, accusing him of tarnishing his name on social media, following a publication he had made on X.

An initial statement by IG Douglas Kanja indicated that Ojwang’ died by suicide by hitting his head on the wall. However an autopsy conducted on his body on Tuesday June 10, 2025 revealed that he was tortured and he sustained serious injuries in the process..

Ojwang’s case is not an isolated case of police brutality. There are more of such cases that have been witnessed in the past as captured below.

Lawyer Willy Kimani.

The human rights lawyer, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their taxi driver, Joseph Muiruri, were abducted by four administration police, who subjected them to torture and later killed them in June 2016. The trio were captured shortly after  filing a complaint on police brutality against a then police officer named  Fredrick Leliman.

Mwenda accused Leliman of shooting him  for no reason at a traffic stop in 2015.

The bodies of the trio were recovered from  Ol Donyo Sabuk River early July 2016, with their hands tied on their backs.

Four police officers namely; Fredrick Leliman, Stephen Cheburet, Silvia Wanjiku, and Leonard Mwangi — were charged on 18 July 2016 with three counts of murder for the disappearance and murder death of Kimani, Mwenda and Muiruri.

Three police officers were found guilty of the charges but Leonard Mwangi was acquitted. The three officers, and their informant(Peter Ngugi) were found guilty as charged in July 2022.

They received hefty sentences in February 2023. Leliman was sentenced to life imprisonment while, his accomplices received sentences of between 20-30 years in jail.

Baby Pendo

Samantha Pendo died at the age of 6-months after being hit on the head by police officers who had been deployed to quell unrest that had been fuelled by elections in 2017 in Kisumu.

Four police officers were charged with Pendo’s murder early May, a move that gave hope to baby Pendo’s family.

“As the family of Baby Pendo at least we are going somewhere… they are taking a bold step to take the case to another level. It’s just our prayer for us to find justice for our daughter so that whatever happened to us does not happen to another parent,” her mother told the media.

The Director of Public Prosecution dropped charges against 8 other police who had been linked the case sparking criticism among Kenyans.

Martin Koome

Koome murdered at the Ruaraka Police station on December 19, 2013. He had been arrested and booked at the police station following a domestic squabble with his wife.

At the station, the OCS, namely Nahashon Mutua, assaulted him leaving him with serious injuries that caused his death.

Mutua was convicted after being found guilty of Koome’s murder. He is currently serving a life sentence at the Kamiti Maximum prison.

Other cases where Kenyans have lost their lives under mysterious circumstances while in custody include that of Samuel Njuguna and businessman Washington Booker Ojukwu.

Njuguna, a robbery suspect, died in January 2024 at the Githuria Kimbo police cell. Police claimed that he collapsed and died but the family contested that.

On the other hand, Ojukwu died in Buruburu police station in 2023 shortly after his arrest. The police allegedly moved his body to a Mortuary in Nairobi without notifying his family.