This archive report was first published on 14 June 2020.
Published on June 14, 2020, a report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) shed light on the masterminds behind the 2007 extrajudicial killings.
The report, compiled in 2008, revealed that top government officials, including President Mwai Kibaki and Minister Raphael Tuju, orchestrated the killings.
According to the report, the police used brutal methods such as strangulation, drowning, mutilation, and bludgeoning to execute suspects. The police also changed their modus operandi to make it appear as though rival Mungiki gangs were responsible for the killings.
Spokesperson Eric Kiraithe attributed the wave of killings to rival Mungiki gangs, claiming a schism within the movement. However, witnesses told the KNCHR that the killer squads carried machetes, iron bars, ropes, and other crude weapons in their vehicles.
President Kibaki warned Mungiki sect members to expect no mercy during Madaraka day celebrations on June 1, 2007. Two days later, about three hundred suspected Mungiki members were arrested and at least twenty killed.
Minister Tuju publicly admitted that up to 400 people were killed because they were Mungiki during a live TV program on Citizen TV on September 20, 2007.
The KNCHR had compiled at least three hundred names of persons who have either been killed or disappeared by the time of the report's compilation.
