The horrors of Nyayo House torture chambers are still alive today and wherever its living victims are interviewed, they mention a retired Deputy Commissioner of Police, James Opiyo.
Born in 1945 to a carpenter in Ranen village belonging to the Onyango Abungo clan, a sub-clan of the larger Kogelo clan, Opiyo is said to be the 'torture-in-chief'.
According to a past piece published by the Standard Digital, Opiyo received the best torture training including from CIA. He was also trained in Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia and Britain.
His torture skills were great if the narration by some victims is anything to believe.
"First, it is fairly friendly. It is like persuasion. Then, if you persist, the following day, they become more intimidating, threats. After that, the third day, they would then become more violent. You would be taken down to be tortured. They would begin to pour the waters in the cells and so on. Until you finally give in and confess," ODM leader Raila Odinga narrated in 2009 as quoted by Voice of America (VOA).
There was chaining, stripping, starvation and freezing among other methods.
“I was ordered to strip naked… my hands were chained to the chair and I could not move at all. From the moment the brutal interrogation started, everything in the room changed and the language of coercion and violence was introduced," historian Maina wa Kinyatti was quoted by SDE.
Even screams could not help until the torture experts got what they were after whether imagined or real.
Opiyo has been painted as a cruel man by victims. However, his family describes him as a loving husband of three wives and the best father.
He joined the police in 1971 as a cadet and rose through the ranks until he was Deputy Commissioner of Police thanks to his relation to late powerful Internal Security Permanent Secretary Hezekiah Oyugi.