Authorities in Kenya said they have placed eight police officers on suspension after a suspected serial killer escaped from jail. Per BBC, the suspended police officers are being investigated for allegedly helping Collins Jumaisi Khalusha escape.
Kenyan police in July said Khalusha, 33, confessed to killing 42 people over the last two years. The victims also included his wife, but his lawyer said that was not the case and claimed Khalusha was tortured to confess.
Khalusha, who was arrested in July and had been in custody since that time, escaped with 12 other inmates on Tuesday. Authorities said they were “aided by insiders”, adding that officers were giving inmates breakfast at 05:00 local time (03:00 GMT) when they noticed Khalusha and the other inmates were nowhere to be found.
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Authorities said Khalusha and the 12 other inmates managed to escape after they cut a wire mesh roof before jumping a perimeter wall. The other escapees were said to be Eritreans who had illegally entered the East African nation.
Police arrested Khalusha in connection with the mass killings after the mutilated bodies of nine victims were found at an abandoned quarry in the capital, Nairobi, BBC reported. The news of the killings drew outrage, with several people registering their displeasure over how the police were unable to notice bodies were being disposed of at a quarry that wasn’t too far from a police station.
People also questioned how the police failed to detect that 42 people had been killed since 2022 and how they were unable to link someone to the murders for such a long time until they arrested a suspect less than three days after the bodies of the victims were found in the quarry.
The Independent Police Oversight Authority, which is Kenya’s police watchdog, also raised eyebrows over the case and subsequently opened an investigation to determine if the police had anything to do with the murders because of “widespread allegations of police involvement in unlawful arrests [and] abductions”.
As previously reported by Fac2Face Africa, extra-judicial killings by Kenyan police are said to be a matter of concern.
