Corporal Ahmed Rashid, the police officer captured on a viral video shooting at two men in the Eastleigh suburb of Nairobi will face murder charges.
This follows a report from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP) which corroborated earlier findings by the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA).
The ODPP, after interrogating IPOA's report established that there was concrete evidence to prefer murder charges against the police officer.
Consequently, IPOA proceeded to the High Court and secured a summon against the officer requiring him to appear for pleading on December 8.
“The Independent Policing Oversight Authority concluded the investigation into the deaths of Jamal Mohamed and Mohamed Dahir Kheri following a shooting which occurred at Eastleigh, Nairobi County on March 31, 2017, and established that the fatalities were occasioned by police action," the statement read in part.
According to the Police Oversight body, evidence from CCTV footage, as well as ballistic investigations and postmortem examinations, established that the deaths of the two men were occasioned by the activities of police officers.
As such, IPOA undertook investigations into the matter that went viral both locally and internationally.
However, the police watchdog was unable to ascertain the identity of another man captured on camera during the shootings.
The March 31, 2017 shooting caught the attention of different lobby groups, questioning the justification of executing the unarmed men.
In an amateur video shot from a balcony in Eastleigh, a police officer dressed in civilian clothes was seen hailing bullets at a man lying on the road.
The officer, upon running out of ammunition, signalled his companion who in turn gave him his firearm.
He continued shooting at the already lying man before proceeding to the next man lying a few metres away. The case was an extension of the series of extra-judicial killings linked to police officers as a way of combating the surging crime rate.
Inspector General of the National Police Service Japhet Koome, who was the then Nairobi County Police Commander, noted that one of the dead men was wanted for killing two police officers in Nairobi.
