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

Seven years after their baby daughter was killed in a brutal midnight police operation in Kenya amid post-election tensions, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still reeling from emotions as the case against the alleged police officers has been postponed again.

“It’s a scar that will never fade,” 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 inundated with calls. Every moment of expectation leads to disappointment in their quest for justice.

The family lives in the western city of Kisumu – an opposition stronghold where riots erupted in August 2017 over anger at the results of an election that was eventually repeated due to irregularities.

Their small home was located along the road in the Nyalenda informal settlement that witnessed the August 11 protests where police were deployed to quell the riots.

That night, the couple locked their wooden door and barricaded it with furniture. Around midnight, they heard the neighbors’ doors being broken down and some members of the household being beaten.

Not long after, the police arrived at their door.

“They knocked and hit several times [but] I refused to open,” Mr Abanja told the BBC, adding that he begged them to spare his family of four.

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

Mr. Abanja 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 raised my hands, and they beat me until they couldn’t hold it anymore.”

His wife came out of the house holding Samantha, who was breathing hard because of the tear gas, and she was not spared either.

“They went ahead beating me [with clubs] while I was holding my daughter,” says Mrs Achieng.

The next thing she felt was her daughter holding her tightly “like she was in pain.”

“I turned her over and what was coming out of her mouth? It was foam.”

She shouted that they had killed her daughter and at that moment the beatings stopped and Mr. Abanja was ordered to provide first aid.

The baby came to, but was seriously injured.

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

Their search for justice has been long and frustrating, as has 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 a plea hearing has not yet taken place.

One of the victims’ lawyers, Willys Otieno, believes that the delay was due to a lack of political will to deliver justice to the victims of election violence.

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

“The state is no longer in the interest of prosecuting perpetrators, [and] it is now left to the victims’ lawyers – to us who work with NGOs and human rights groups to press for charges to be registered and accused persons to stand trial,” Mr Otieno told the BBC.

He respects the current director of the State Attorney’s Office (DPT) that he “behaves as a lawyer for the accused”.

“It wasn’t even the defendants who applied to the court for an adjournment – it was the DPP who applied to the court for an adjournment,” the lawyer said of the two failed plea attempts last October and November.

The third attempt was supposed to take place two days ago, but was postponed due to the transfer of the presiding judge – so it was 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 announced on X that “the case remains one of the highest profile in recent history, with the death of Baby Pendo symbolizing the tragic outcome of police brutality in the post-election unrest in 2017

But those involved in the case find the delays troubling.

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

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

The Attorney General subsequently ordered further investigations into other cases arising from the August 2017 police operation and engaged independent constitutional investigative bodies, civil society and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The investigation uncovered evidence that the DPP says indicates “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 sought the indictment of the suspect, a first in Kenya’s history under the International Crimes Act.

Those to be charged include commanders who are being held accountable for their responsibilities as superior officers – another first in Kenya.

In September 2023, a new DDP took over, Renson M Ingonga, but since then there has been little progress in 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 a private lawsuit or going to the East African Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court if the 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. Abanja, who is now 40 years old and 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, that little girl I named after my mom.”