Kianjokoma brothers’ parents testify

The parents of Benson Njiru and Emmanuel Mutura, the slain Kianjokoma brothers, delivered emotional testimonies on Monday, telling a judge how police sent them on a long, tedious, and fruitless search for their sons.

John Ndwiga and Catherine Wawira said police sent them on a wild goose chase for two days, even though they knew very well that their sons were already dead and that, their bodies lay at the mortuary.

Testifying before high court judge Daniel Ogembo, the parents said the officers at Manyatta Police Station blatantly lied to them and led them on a search covering nearly ten police stations.

Mutura, 19, and Njiru, 22, were last seen on August 1, 2021.

Their bodies were discovered at Embu Level 5 hospital mortuary three days after they were arrested by police from Manyatta police station, causing a protest in the Kianjokoma area.

On August 2, the morning after they went missing, their parents went looking for them at the Manyatta police station. But officers from the station denied having arrested them the previous night.

“In the morning, when we found out that they were not in their rooms, we went to the shopping center to look for them.

“We were told that there were people who had been arrested by officers from Manyatta over curfew rules, so we rushed there,” Ndwiga said.

The father said that at the reception, he gave the police the names of his two sons and asked him to find out if they were among those arrested.

The officer said their names were not in their occurrence book. Instead, the officers told him to look for them at other police stations.

And so they went looking for Njiru and Mutura at Runyenjes Police Station but did not find them.