Six years ago, Kenya witnessed one of the most chilling cases of police brutality in recent memory—the murder of human rights lawyer Willy Kimani, boda boda rider Josephat Mwenda, and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri.
Their deaths were not random acts of violence but a calculated attempt to silence those who dared challenge law enforcement misconduct.
On 23 June 2016, the three men left Mavoko Law Courts after a session in Mwenda’s case, where he had accused police of shooting him during a traffic stop in Mlolongo.
They never made it home. Instead, they were abducted, not recorded, not charged, and taken to the Syokimau Administration Police Camp. What followed was horrific.
Inside a dark container at the camp, the victims were beaten, tortured, and subjected to unimaginable cruelty.
In his final hours, Kimani, 32, a father of two and a lawyer with the International Justice Mission, managed to write a desperate note in Swahili asking for help.
He threw it out through the container’s grills, but calls for help went unanswered.
Mwenda, the outspoken rider, was killed first, strangled for his defiance. Muiruri, an innocent taxi driver caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, was killed shortly after.
Kimani endured prolonged torture, culminating in a brutal beating with a boulder.
Their bodies were bound, placed in sacks, weighed down with stones, and dumped into the cold waters of the Ol Donyo Sabuk River. Their remains were recovered on 1 July 2016.
The mastermind behind the killings, Sergeant Fredrick Ole Leliman, had been the same officer Mwenda accused of shooting him. Leliman orchestrated the abduction to erase both the case and the people behind it.
Investigators pieced together the crime through forensic evidence, phone records, witness testimonies, and Kimani’s small note—a haunting reminder of his courage and determination.
After years of painstaking investigation and court proceedings, justice was partially served in July 2022. Fredrick Ole Leliman was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Police officer Stephen Cheburet received a 30-year sentence, Sylvia Wanjiku was sentenced to 24 years, and civilian Peter Ngugi got 20 years. One officer involved in the crime was acquitted.