By BRIAN OTIENO @yobramos4
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Police officers and explosive experts look at the body of a terror suspect outside the Central police station in Mombasa on September 11 /REUTERS
The autopsies of the three slain women suspected to be terrorists was postponed indefinitely yesterday after their families refused to have the bodies cut, despite having agreed to the procedure earlier.
The three women are said to have attacked the Central police station in Mombasa on September 11. They are alleged to have had a knife and petrol bomb, an account disputed by major human rights organisations.
They cite a video that appears to show a policeman repeatedly shooting one of the women as she lay on the ground, raising an arm in surrender.
The postmortem was cancelled as the government pathologist Johansen Oduor said the autopsy cannot be conducted until lawyers from both sides agree over the issue. The bodies are still at the Coast General Provincial Hospital mortuary.
At the hospital yesterday, the families insisted they wanted to take the bodies for Muslim burial. They had agreed to the procedure and backed out twice, then agreed only to external examination.
The pathologists only took finger nail and skin samples.
However, two organisation insisted that the autopsy be conducted. They are the Muslims for Human Rights and the Kenyan National Commission for Human Rights.
It was claimed that all the eight bullets in one of the bodies exited.
The human rights defenders now argue that without a single bullet in the bodies, they cannot sustain a case which they suspect is extrajudicial killing.
Those present in the postmortem room were Oduor, Dr Mbuko (pathologist), Dr Salim from CGH, parents of the two girls, and two other female siblings.
Also present at the hospital were KNCHR officer in charge of investigations Kamanda Mucheke, Kenya Human Rights Commission’s Andrew Songa and Independent Medical Legal Unit representative Hilda Nyatete.
Abdirahman Hussein, the father to two of the slain girls – Maimuna Abdilrahman Hussein and Ramla Abdilrahman Hussein – was accompanied by human rights activists and other relatives.
Police said the two girls, together with suspected mastermind, Tasneem Takoub, attacked the police station, stabbed an officer and threw a petrol bomb.
Muhuri chairman Khelef Khalifa, CEO Hassan Abdile and Frederick Okado said it took great effort to convince the family to agree to the postmortem.
Khalifa said they are still trying to locate relatives of the third suspected terrorist.
According to the human rights officers, one body had more than eight bullets. That postmortem will take a long time because each bullet must be located and its trajectory traced.
The pathologists were to handle one body at a time.
“I have counted at least eight bullet wounds in one of the bodies,” Mucheke said.