Recently sworn in Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja risks a six month jail sentence barely a week after the Masengeli drama that forced him to apologise to Justice Lawrence Mugambi
According to reports, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has now filed a petition against Douglas Kanja for contempt of court that if successful, could see the Inspector General sentenced to six months in prison.
LSK in their petition argued that the police boss allegedly deployed masked and hooded officers to disrupt a peaceful procession by a section of Kenyans who were going to present their grievances to the Office of the President on September 24.
The Law Society says that Kanja’s action contravened a court order issued in August that police officers should display their service numbers and always remain identifiable at all times when dealing with persons exercising their rights under Article 37.
“Respondents have since violated these orders and continued to deploy unidentifiable, masked police officers and uniformed police officers with hidden concealed service numbers in disregard of the pronouncement of this Honourable Court specifically.”
LSK further claimed that the court ordered the police IG to ensure that where plainclothes police are deployed, they should not in any way hide or obscure their face to render them difficult to identify or unidentifiable.
The petitioners called on the court to convict the police boss Douglas Kanja for the offence of contempt of court and for that case, want him sentenced to six months imprisonment per the law.
“That the above sentence be and is hereby suspended if, within 14 days of the order, the police IG gives a written undertaking to comply with the order and guarantee a non-repetition of their disobedience of the court’s order of August 14 2024.”
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This comes after High Court in Nairobi summoned Douglas Kanja over the disappearance of Wajir Member of the County Assembly Yussuf Ahmed and gave him 18 Hours to either produce the MCA or appear before court to explain the lawmaker’s whereabouts.