IG Kanja, DCI Amin Explain Skipping Court Summons Over Abduction of Mlolongo 3

The Inspector General of Police, Douglas Kanja, and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) boss, Mohamed Amin, failed to appear in court again in a case filed by human rights organisations over the abduction of three Kenyans.

On January 13, Justice Mwita ordered Kanja and Amin to appear in person on Friday, January 17, to address the disappearance of three men in Mlolongo, Machakos County, in December 2024. However, the two did not attend court as directed.

During the court proceedings on Friday, January 17, their lawyer, Advocate Paul Nyamodi, explained to Justice Chacha Mwita that his clients were not properly served with summons to appear in court. He cited the use of an incorrect email address as the reason for the failure to comply with the judge's directives.

"The affidavit of service sworn on January 13 is not proof of service by way of electronic mail as it does not state that email addresses through which the IG and DCI were purportedly served, were their last confirmed and used email addresses," Nyamodi revealed.

Police IG Douglas Kanja at his office. /FILE

As a result, the IG and the DCI director were not allowed to present their case. "Unless this application is certified as urgent and heard promptly, there is a risk of a grave miscarriage of justice," they said in their application.

However, the petitioners' lawyer, Noel Otieno, insisted that service was properly effected, as electronic communication is legally recognised. The police chiefs are now asking the court to set aside the orders requiring them to produce the missing persons, whether alive or dead.

Justice Chacha Mwita directed that he listened to both sides' arguments and will rule on whether the police bosses must appear in court on Thursday, January 23.

"I will consider your arguments and because of the work we have, I will deliver my ruling on the 23rd of this month at 11 am in open court," the judge directed, adding "The orders issued on December 28th and affirmed on January 13 remain in force until then."

According to the Witness Summonses (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act, one can be fined Ksh500,000 for failing to honour court summons.

"Any person who has been served with a summons under this Act and has not been excused from complying therewith by an order made under section 7 or section 8 of this Act, shall if he fails to obey the summons, be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding Ksh500,000."

IG Kanja, DCI boss Amin and the police have been in the spotlight over the recent widespread abductions and have even been sued in court for the same. Notably, amid the sharp criticism from Kenyans, the police have maintained that they are not responsible for the abductions.

This is not the only case where the police chiefs have been summoned to court, in what is becoming a trend. The IG and the DCI boss have been summoned in a separate case to explain the spate of abductions.

In an opinion piece this week, the Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kipchumba Murkomen, questioned the trend, arguing that it distracts officers from performing their primary duties.

“When we deeply reflect on what effective policing means to our brothers and sisters across the nation, we find it difficult to allow the normalisation of the attacks against our first line of defence simply because they are doing their job of protecting all of us from some of us who are potentially dangerous,” he wrote in the piece published on Nation.Africa.