Kenya: Policeman to be charged with murder

A Kenyan policeman who gained notoriety after mobile phone footage showed him gunning down two men in 2017 is to be charged with murder.

Kenya’s police watchdog, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA), says it has obtained a summons against Corporal Ahmed Rashid for the two killings in broad daylight in Eastleigh suburb in the capital Nairobi in March 2017.

He has not yet commented.

Corporal Rashid is known to have used social media platforms to warn individuals he claimed had broken the law.

The decision to charge him follows months of investigations by the IPOA .

Corporal Rashid was believed to be among a group of police officers known as the Pangani Six who drew both praise and condemnation from Kenyans for how they handled criminal gangs in the city.

The officers have been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings.

The move to charge him comes weeks after the government announced the disbandment of an elite squad accused of killings, torture, extortion and abductions of dozens of Kenyans.

Eleven officers from the unit are facing multiple charges in court, including over the disappearance of two Indian nationals and their driver in July.