Garissa Muslim clerics have urged the government to stop exercising double standards in conducting investigations into extrajudicial killings.
Supkem chairperson Sheikh Salat Abdullahi issued that security agencies, human rights agencies, courts and practicing lawyers have handled the latest murder of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josphat Mwenda, and taxi driver, Joseph Muiruri in a manner suggesting they were more important than any other victims who have met similarly brutal deaths.
Speaking at the General Mohamud Idd Grounds in Garissa where he had joined hundreds of Muslim believers to mark the Eid prayers, Sheikh Abdulahi said extrajudicial killings should be handled at an equal measure so as to have all the affected families feel justice has been accorded to their departed relatives.
“These extrajudicial murders have been happening since time immemorial in Kenya. Had the lawyers and human rights activists exerted pressure on the government like what is now being seen, we could never be talking about such cases today,” Abdullahi said.
Abdullahi further said the murders would not have occurred if the police, lawyers and rights activists had acted on past public outcries.
"Lawyers knew what was going on in the country but opted to ignore until when one of them was murdered," he said.
The sheikh is now urging lawyers to redeem their professional image and take up all pending cases for Kenyans to take them seriously and put such extra judicial killings to an end.