The killing of Kenyan baby Samantha Pendo, police brutality and the long wait for justice

Seven years after their young daughter was killed in a brutal midnight police operation in Kenya at a time of post-election tension, Joseph Oloo Abaja and Lensa Achieng are still overcome with emotion as the case against the policemen allegedly involved has been adjourned again.

“It's a scar that will never go away,” Ms Achieng, a hotel worker, told the BBC of the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo, who died with a fractured skull and internal bleeding.

After every delay or small development, the couple is flooded with calls. Every moment of waiting leads to frustration in the search for justice.

The family lives in the western city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold where riots broke out in August 2017. amid anger over the results of the election, which was eventually re-run due to irregularities.

Their small home was by the side of a road in Nyalenda informal settlement, which witnessed protests on August 11, where riot police were deployed.

That night, the couple locked their wooden door and barricaded it with furniture. Around midnight, they heard neighbors' doors being smashed and some of the residents being beaten.

Not long after, the police arrive at their door.

“They knocked and kicked him several times (but) I refused to open,” Mr Abaja told the BBC, adding that he pleaded with them to spare his family of four.

But the beating continued until police found a small space through which they fired tear gas into the one-room house, forcing the family out.

Mr. Abaja says he was ordered to lie down in front of the door and that's when the beating began.

“They were going for my head, so I put my hands up and they beat my hands until they couldn't take it anymore.”

His wife came out of the house holding Samantha gasping for air and was not spared either.

“They kept beating me (with clubs) while I was holding my daughter,” says Ms Achieng.

The next thing she felt was her daughter holding her tight “like it hurt.”

“I spun her around and what came out of her mouth? It was foam.”

She cried out that they had killed her daughter and at that point the beatings stopped and Mr. Abaja was ordered to administer first aid.

The baby recovered, but was badly injured.

The couple says the officers then quickly left and neighbors helped them take Samantha to the hospital. She died after three days in intensive care.

Their quest for justice has been long and frustrating, like that of dozens of others caught up in the post-election violence.

Twelve police officers are expected to be charged with murder, rape and torture – but the hearing at which this will happen, when they will be asked to plead guilty, has not yet taken place.

One of the victims' lawyers, Willis Otieno, believes the delay is due to the lack of political will to give justice to the victims of election violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta won a repeat election later in 2017. – the opposition candidate withdrew from the race. His deputy William Ruto, with whom they later fell out, won the next vote – taking office in September 2022.

“The state is no longer interested in prosecuting the perpetrators, (and) it is now left to the victims' advocates – those of us who work with NGOs and human rights groups to press for charges to be registered and accused persons to be brought to justice in court,” Mr Otieno told the BBC.

He accuses the current Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of “acting like a lawyer for the accused”.

“Even the non-accused have applied to the court for an adjournment – it is the DPP who has applied to the court for an adjournment,” the lawyer said of two failed attempts to plead last October and November.

The third attempt was due to take place two days ago, but was postponed due to the transfer of the head of the court panel – and has been rescheduled for the end of the month.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) told the BBC it could not process a request for comment, but published on X that “the case remains one of the most high-profile in recent history, with the death of baby Pendo symbolizing the tragic results of police brutality during the post-election unrest in 2017.”

But those involved in the case find the delays troubling.

“It was the DPP's office who started this case and they were the ones who contacted us a few years ago. They asked us to join a victim support group which was basically set up to ensure they would have witnesses for their case,” Irungu Houghton, head of human rights group Amnesty International Kenya, told the BBC.

After the initial investigations, the then DPP, Nurdin' Hajji, initiated a public inquiry into the death of baby Samantha. The judge found the police guilty.

The prosecutor subsequently ordered further investigations into other cases as a result of the August 2017 police operation. and involved independent constitutional inquiry bodies, civil society and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The investigation revealed evidence which the DPP said pointed to “the systematic use of violence, including murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, against civilians, all of which constitute serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity”.

In October 2022 the prosecutor then requested that the suspects be charged, for the first time in Kenya's history, under the International Crimes Act.

Those to be charged include commanders held responsible because of their responsibility as senior officers – another first for Kenya.

In September 2023 a new DDP took office, Renson M Ingonga, but since then there has not been much movement on the case.

There appears to be a “reluctance to try to prosecute this case”, says Mr Houghton.

Mr Otieno says lawyers for the victims may consider seeking justice through private prosecution or turning to the East African Court or the International Criminal Court if delays continue.

Samantha's parents support this idea because without justice they say they cannot heal – any delay reopens their wounds.

“It doesn't matter how I do it, but I will see to it that justice is done,” says Mr. Abaja, now 40, who earns his living as a tuk-tuk taxi driver.

“Because they took away something that was so precious to me – she was everything to me, this little girl I named after my mother.