A former Kenyan policeman was sentenced to death on Friday for killing a human rights lawyer, his client and a taxi driver.
Frederick Leliman and three others were convicted of carrying out the murders in 2016, in one of a series of cases of alleged police brutality and extrajudicial killings in Kenya.
Attorney Willie Kimani was representing a motorcycle taxi operator who was suing Leliman for shooting him at a checkpoint. Leliman later began threatening and intimidating the man.
The bodies of Kimani, his client Josephat Mwendwa and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were discovered in the Ol-Donyo Sabuk River in the east of the country days after their disappearances.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY OFFERS SCHOLARSHIP TO LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST AFTER INITIAL DENIAL SPARKS CRITICISM
Kenya Police officers at the quay from left to right sentenced Peter Ngugi Kamau, 20, Sylvia Wanjiku Wanjohi, 24, Stephen Cheburet Morogo, 30 and Fredrick Leliman, sentenced to life in Kenya’s Milimani court on 3 February 2023.
(AP photo)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Evidence produced in court showed the three were abducted after a court hearing on June 22, 2016, briefly locked up, and then taken outside and murdered in an open field. Their bodies were discovered on July 1st.
Leliman was sentenced to death, while former officers Stephen Cheburet and Sylvia Wanjiku received sentences of 30 and 24 years respectively, and police informant Peter Ngugi was jailed for 20 years. A fourth former police officer, Leonard Mwangi, was acquitted.
Those sentenced to death in Kenyan courts are serving life sentences. The last execution in Kenya dates back to 1987.
The four have 14 days to file an appeal.
The killings sparked a series of protests from lawyers and human rights defenders as Kenyan police have been accused of brutality and extrajudicial killings in the past but very few officers have been convicted.
