No known police squad is killing people, says Murkomen

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Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has dismissed claims that any police squad is being used to carry out extra-judicial killings under the current administration, insisting that no officer, uniformed or otherwise, has the right to kill.

Speaking to journalists at Harambee House in Nairobi on Tuesday, CS Murkomen said the government was not running any covert police unit involved in killings and warned officers to strictly adhere to the law in their conduct.

“There is no known police squad that is involved in killing people, at least not in this administration and not that the Cabinet Secretary is aware of,” Mr Murkomen said.

He further noted that it would be both unconstitutional and illegal to create such a unit anywhere in the country.

“The law does not give any police officer the right to kill citizens, whether they are in uniform or plain clothes. The dress code of a police officer is not a licence to break the law.”

The CS was responding to growing public concern over alleged police excesses during recent protests on June 25 and July 7, where demonstrators accused security forces of using deadly force.

However, Mr Murkomen described the protests as having been infiltrated by what he termed “marauding gangs of looters and barefaced anarchists”, blaming them for widespread destruction of property.

“On these two(2) days, looters broke into private businesses in multiple parts of the country. Years of hard work and sacrifice were lost in an instant.”

He confirmed that arrests had been made in connection with attacks on police stations and other State installations and revealed that a policy directive on the use of force would soon be issued to the Inspector General of Police (IG).

The directive, he said, would align police operations more closely with the Constitution and international standards on human rights.

Mr Murkomen’s remarks come amid a tense national debate on police accountability, especially following the June 25 commemorations where at least 63 protesters were reportedly killed in 2024--a matter still under public scrutiny.