A Police Chief Inspector in Kenya identified as Duncan Otieng has been arrested by Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for allegedly demanding a bribe.
Otieng, who is the Officer Commanding Station (OSC) for Ruai Police Station was arrested on Saturday evening, November 4, for allegedly demanding a bribe of Ksh5,000 (N26,000) from persons he had locked up on Friday, October 3. He reportedly accused them of being drunk and disorderly.
Confirming the arrest, EACC CEO Twalib Mbarak said;
“EACC detectives apprehended the OCS after investigations into a complaint received from relatives of some of the detained revellers that on Friday night, police officers from Ruai Police Station visited a Club called Fun City in the Utawala and arbitrarily arrested the revellers allegedly without any reasonable cause.
“The revellers were taken to Ruai Police Station where they were put in police cells until the following day, Saturday, when the OCS ordered each of them to pay him Ksh5,000 bribe in order to be released unconditionally. The OCS told the detainees that failure to pay the demanded amount would see each of them spend the entire weekend in police cells and face criminal charges of being drunk and disorderly, on Monday.”
The OCS was processed at Integrity Centre Police Station on Saturday night and is currently detained at Kilimani Police Station.
According to Mbarak, the Commission has been receiving several complaints of OCSs locking up citizens, especially young people, then demanding bribes from them as a condition for release from custody. He further revealed that in some cases, persons are reportedly put in police cells without being booked for any offence in the Occurrence Book (OB) and later compelled to pay bribes in order to freedom.
