A Nairobi Magistrate’s Court heard shocking revelations on Monday about systematic tampering with police firearms records during the June 2024 Gen Z protests, as the inquest into Rex Masai’s death exposed serious irregularities designed to conceal officer accountability.
Principal Magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo was told that Police Constable Simon Waweru received a pistol with 15 rounds of ammunition on June 19 while deployed to River Road but failed to sign for the weapon either when collecting it or returning it to the armory.
His name was only added to the arms movement register after Corporal Martin Githinji corrected an earlier mistake using white-out fluid.
“My force number appears in the register, but I did not sign. The armorer had already signed. I believe it was a mistake, not an intentional false entry,” Waweru testified, though the suspicious alteration raised serious questions about the integrity of official police documentation.
Corporal Githinji admitted to erroneously recording his name twice in the register and said he corrected the mistake in the presence of the armorer.
However, during cross-examination, he made a startling admission about the lack of proper training among officers deployed during the deadly protests.
“I’ve never used rubber bullets or seen them fired. We were not trained to use them,” Githinji testified, highlighting the apparent unpreparedness of officers handling civilian demonstrations with potentially lethal weapons.
The testimony took another dramatic turn when Officer Geoffrey Murangiri denied being issued rubber bullets despite the arms register bearing his signature next to an entry labeled “R/bullets.”
He claimed he had signed for a teargas launcher instead, insisting the weapon was incapable of firing rubber bullets.
Murangiri described the chaotic deployment during the protests, revealing there was no formal briefing on June 20, with officers simply told to remain on standby.
He used his teargas launcher to disperse protesters who had blocked Moi Avenue and Tom Mboya Street, though he reported no civilian casualties despite the widespread violence that characterized the police response.
During re-examination, Murangiri admitted another discrepancy when he explained that while the official log showed his launcher was returned on June 21, he had actually returned it on June 20 at 6:30 p.m.
These revelations expose a troubling pattern of tampered records, unsigned weapons registers, and multiple discrepancies in officer testimony, suggesting a systematic effort to obscure the truth about weapons deployment during the protests.
The case has become a crucial test of Kenya’s commitment to police accountability, with the outcome likely to have far-reaching implications for how security forces handle future civilian demonstrations and whether officers who abuse their power can be held to account.
The inquest into Rex Masai’s death continues as the court seeks to uncover the truth behind the young protester’s killing during demonstrations that became synonymous with police brutality and the abuse of state power.
