Four policemen will stand trial for the death of British aristocrat Alexander Monson who died in their custody in 2012.
The four, Naftali Chege, Charles Wangombe Munyiri, Baraka Bulima and John Pamba, were accused of killing the 28-year old who had been arrested for smoking bhang.
The judge stated that the four would face murder charges, seeing that no evidence had been found indicating that the British man had been assaulted anywhere else, other than at the police station.
“The accused should tell the court what happened since the deceased was arrested in good health,” High Court Judge Erick Ogolla ruled.
Alexander, son of British aristocrat Nicholas, the 12th Baron Monson, and heir to a family estate in Lincolnshire, in eastern England moved to Kenya to live with his mother Hilary Monson in 2008.
According to reports by government pathologists, Monson died after suffering a traumatic blow to the head.
In 2018, an inquest ruled that he had been beaten to death further indicating failed attempts to cover up the incident and threats against witnesses.
"I don't think he intended to murder Alexander, he was just a brute who went too far. I'm sorry that there are people high up in the Kenya police who think that he should protect because there is no other interpretation for it," Nicholas Monson told the media in the UK.
The police officers denied the allegations saying Monson died of an overdose.
Other than his mother's testimony that he was not an addict, toxicology reports also revealed he had no drugs in his system at the time of his death.
“I think it was a mixture of anxiety and emotion after trying to catch the keywords the judge was saying. Nonetheless, it is a very, very significant moment, a step forward, one that has taken a while. Now we have to wait for the verdict,” said Alexander's mother, Hilary Monson.
The trial, which has been widely covered by the British media, will have forty-five witnesses including police officers testifying and will begin on May 10, 2021.
