THE father of a British tourist tortured and killed by four cops in a drug sting says he hopes they die in jail. Last night four police officers were found guilty of the manslaughter of Alexander Monson while he was being held in police custody. A judge in Kenya jailed Naftali Chege, Charles Wangombe Munyiri, […]
THE father of a British tourist tortured and killed by four cops in a drug sting says he hopes they die in jail.
Last night four police officers were found guilty of the manslaughter of Alexander Monson while he was being held in police custody.
A judge in Kenya jailed Naftali Chege, Charles Wangombe Munyiri, Baraka Buluma and John Pamba for their part in the death of 28-year-old Alexander in 2012.
For the past nine years mystery has surrounded how Alexander sustained terrible injuries to his head, arm and groin in a police station in the beach resort of Diani.
The court heard that he had been “brutally tortured”.
His grieving father Nicholas Monson has long believed that the policemen had beaten the Londoner because he could not pay a bribe they demanded after planting cannabis on him.
And the judge declared that the drugs were planted on Alexander after his death “as a cover up”.
Alexander’s family had hoped the men would be convicted of murder, but his family is relieved that they will be going to prison for the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Last night Nicholas, who travelled from Stratford-upon-Avon to East Africa for the verdict, told The Sun: “At least they are going to jail.
“From what I understand of the state of Kenyan jails they won’t survive a year. They will die in jail.”
Chege, who arrested and interrogated Alexander, was given the longest sentence of 15 years, five of which are suspended.
Nicholas reveals: “Chege was completely cold-blooded in court.
“He will spend at least ten years there and will be going in to conditions which are absolutely terrible and won’t have an easy ride in prison.”
To get to this point Nicholas has had to take on what many consider to be a corrupt and very dangerous police force in a nation which relies heavily on British tourists.
A couple of weeks after Kenya’s Interior Minister told the grieving dad that he was going to clean up the cops, this very senior politician died in a mysterious helicopter crash.
Nicholas was warned to leave the area where Alexander had died otherwise a terrible fate could befall him as well.
And when a friend took a photograph of him standing outside the police station at the heart of this shocking case he was dragged off a tourist bus at machine gun point by plain clothes officers.
Nicholas, 65, feared he would suffer fatal injuries while in police custody just like Alexander, 28, appears to have done.
At least they are going to jail. From what I understand of the state of Kenyan jails they won’t survive a year
Nicholas Monson
He says: “I thought I was going to be following my son and meeting my end there.”
That frightening experience in 2015 did not put Nicholas off.
He kept pushing for the investigations into Alexander’s suspicious death to continue, even when he was told there was no chance of seeing a Kenyan police officer face criminal charges.
With his health ailing the aristocrat, who is the 12th Baron Monson, is kept going by the desire to see this traumatic case through.
His heart is failing him and he believes it was broken by the agony of losing Alexander.
Nicholas reveals: “It had an effect on me physically to have such grief, my body reacted to it.
“I came down with things I had never come down with previously.
“The one thing that spurred me to stay alive is to see the killers of my son go behind bars.”
That heartache was compounded when his other son Rupert Green, 21, killed himself in January 2017.
Alexander, from London, was in Kenya working at his mum Hilary’s holiday resort in the early hours of May 19 2012 when he was stopped by the tourist police outside a restaurant bar in Diani.
The officers claimed that the British man had been smoking cannabis.
When he arrived at Kwale County police station officers logged Alexander as being in good health.
Yet, when his friends came to the station the next morning to see if they could get him out, he was clinging to life.
At Palm Beach hospital Alexander was still handcuffed to his bed when his mum came to visit him just before he passed away in the late afternoon.
Afterwards the police claimed that he had died from a drug overdose.
But an independent autopsy carried out on behalf of his family showed that it was a blow to the head that had ended his life.
The family’s barrister Iain Daniels told The Sun: “He also had defence injuries on one arm and significant bruising on his testicles.
“You don’t have to be a specialist in anything particular to make an assumption about what happened there. There is evidence there of a beating.”
A toxicology report also revealed there were no traces of drugs in Alexander’s body.
Nicholas explains: “Alexander was no angel but the toxicology report showed he had taken absolutely nothing. He just had a bit of beer inside him.”
Having immediately flown out to Kenya, Nicholas, who is divorced from Alexander’s mum, started to make enquiries and learned of the name of the officer who he believes delivered the fatal blow.
Adding to the suspicions of corruption is that the police station’s own records show that Alexander’s mobile phone and debit card were taken from him and placed into custody on his arrival.
While that is not unusual, the fact that they went missing and that the card has never been recovered is highly irregular.
Nicholas suspects that the policeman had been trying to “shake down” this Westerner for cash by asking for money in return for his freedom.
When Alexander didn’t have any funds in his account, the officer grew angry.
Nicholas was able to speak to Kenya’s then Interior Minister Professor George Saitoti, who had previously served as the country’s vice president, about the case.
The minister, responsible for the police, told him, “I can arrest and deal with the men who killed your son, but first of all I have to make reforms to the police. I will do this.”
Nicholas recalls: “About five days later there was the news that reforms to the police had been announced by George Saitoti.
“Thirty six hours later he had died in a helicopter crash.”
He believes that drug cartels, who are in league with corrupt officers, were behind the as yet unexplained accident.
Nicholas says: “It was the domino effect of my son’s death.”
Despite resistance from the authorities his legal team gradually managed to get access to the evidence they needed to force an inquest.
While that three year long inquest was going on, Nicholas made a bus journey past the police station where Alexander had been locked up.
His friend decided to take a photograph of Nicholas with the building in the distance after stopping outside.
The peer recalls: “The next thing I knew I was surrounded. We went back to the tourist bus and went to the back.
We had guns pointed at us and were surrounded by plain clothes officers with Glock sub machine guns
Nicholas Monson
“Then this hand came in and stopped the driver turning the key, we had guns pointed at us and then we were told to get out and we were surrounded by these officers, all in plain clothes, with Glock sub machine guns.”
The officers took them to the station and accused them of being terrorists.
Kenya’s security services are on high alert because they have faced attacks by Islamic extremists.
Nicholas continues: “I thought I could calm everything down by explaining that I had a connection with this police station, because, ‘I am the father of Alexander Monson, who died here.’”
But it had the opposite effect and the officers started shouting at him.
Fortunately, his friend managed to make a phone call and the British High Commission intervened.
Nicholas says: “It was a hairy moment, because the police in Kenya have killed other people.”
That is not an exaggeration.
A report from the United Nations said that the Kenyan police “kill often, with impunity”.
Officers have even been charged with the kidnap and murder of lawyer Willie Kimani, who had been investigating corruption within the force.
His body was found in a river in 2016 and an autopsy showed he had been tortured.
The death of Alexander led to Kenya establishing its own Line of Duty style internal investigation unit. The Police Oversight Agency is taking on the country’s own officers.
As a result of their investigation Chege, Munyiri, Bulima and Pamba faced a murder trial.
In 2018 the inquest into Alexander’s death ruled that he had been unlawfully killed, with the judge holding the police responsible.
Nicholas knows that his privileged position has helped him to get the authorities to act.
But the Police Oversight Agency is now also acting to bring cases where Kenyans have died at the hands of the officers who are supposed to protect them.
Prior to the pandemic over 36,000 British tourists visited Kenya every year to enjoy its beautiful beaches and safaris.
Without these signs that action is being taken, less holidaymakers will feel safe following them.
Nicholas concludes: “Would you really encourage your friends or family to go on a jaunt to Kenya?
“The police who killed my son were actually there to give tourists protection.”
