Albert Ojwang murder: How officers' actions in CCTV contradict their boss's statement

IPOS Forensic expert Joshua Mutua and Deputy Director Public Prosecutions Jalson Makori give evidence in chief during the murder trial of teacher Albert Ojwang before the Kibera Law Courts, on July 22, 2026. [David Gichuru, Standard]

Police actions after they put teacher Albert Ojwang in the boot of their vehicle from the cells sold them out.

It had been claimed that Ojwang had been taken to Mbagathi Hospital for medical care. Nevertheless, Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) footage presented a different account, leading to the conclusion that he was taken dead from the cells.

The National Police Service had alleged that the officers on duty had promptly noticed the injuries and rushed him to Mbagathi, where he was pronounced dead.

However, the contradiction starts right at the Central Police Station. At 1.21 am on June 8, 2025, four police officers are seen carrying Ojwang. If their theory that he was still alive would stick, then how the four police officers carried him is important to unravel the truth. Each of them is seen holding his hands and legs, with his head dangling, almost dragging it on the floor.

At the door between the holding bay and the front office, they struggle to move him out; two appear to drag the deceased out from his feet while bent since they could not all fit on the door. The same head-dangling posture is the same all through, even when they bundle him onto the vehicle which had been reversed for the carrier to face the main front office’s entrance door.

Curiously, although it is a norm that anyone with a sickness or a person with an injury will either be in a rush to a nearby hospital, or even offer first aid, the officers who are now joined by their colleagues, and Officer Commanding Station Samson Talam, have a conversation for three minutes, after which two of them join the driver at the cabin.

The clip shows a total of six police officers, including the OCS, around the vehicle.

It left Central at 1.26 am. No one accompanied Ojwang at the boot. In the meantime, at 1.27 am, Talam greets two persons who appear in civilian uniform, then moves aside and leans on a speed limit board put near motorbikes, then joins two female police officers who are standing with their male colleagues at the entrance’s stairs and have a conversation for close to three minutes.

An officer in a trench coat goes inside and reappears at 1.33 with a jerrycan of water and pours it out on the stairs as Talam goes back into the front area.  The trench coat officer is then joined by three others, and they disappear inside.

Back to the cells’ corridor, a man in a black jacket appears wearing its hoodie at 1.36 am. He walks straight to the cell where Ojwang had been held and re-emerges with a rag and wipes it in a line from the start to the end. It leaves a snake-like wetness before returning the rag.

 The same man keeps patrolling the cells at 2.00 am when the clip ends.

Independent Police Oversight Authority on June 16, 2025, sought CCTV from the Mbagathi to tie up its case. This clip was a culmination of what would have best fit the narrative by the police on what happened to Ojwang behind bars.

Three police officers accompanied Ojwang to the hospital: a driver and two others, and they arrived at 1.35. From the CCTV, the three are seen taking their sweet time or in no hurry, to rush to the casualty to save a life or take a sick person.

They are seen in the hospital corridor where they have a chat. Two are in the blue uniform while one is in the jungle police uniform of an administration officer.

A security guard peeps out in the direction of the vehicle when two in blue uniform pass with a stretcher while their colleague follows, busy on his mobile phone.

They lean the stretcher against the vehicle’s boot, then get gloves on. This is at around 1.57 am.

It takes around two minutes to load Ojwang, and the officers are not seen wheeling the stretcher back. In total, it was almost 23 minutes after they arrived.

“ There was no urgency to rush the victim to the medics,” he said.

He is wheeled in by the three police officers and the guard at 1.59 am and pushed inside a room at 2.00 am. At 2.11 am, they re-emerge with him to the police vehicle while three persons follow and watch.

They then load the body from 2.12 am to 2.13.52 am, after which the three police officers go back to the driver’s cabin and the vehicle leaves at 2.15 am.

After the persons at the hospital failed to take up the body, they loaded the body back on the vehicle and left at 2.15 am. On June 8, 2025, a Sunday.

The officers left without taking back the stretcher from the parking area.

“ Based on my review of the available CCTV footage, it is my opinion that the victim was taken to Mbagathi Hospital on 8 June 2025 at approximately 01:35 hrs by three uniformed police officers in a police vehicle. The officers are observed wheeling the deceased toward the casualty area on a stretcher. They are later seen returning to the vehicle with the deceased still on the stretcher, placing him into the vehicle, and departing the hospital compound at approximately 02:15 hrs. It is worth noting that all this time, they went to the casualty to pick the stretcher; the vehicle was unmanned. Nobody was guarding the vehicle,” testified  Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) senior assistant forensics director Joshua Mutua.

Those accused of the murder are former Central Police Station OCS Samson Talaam, Police Constables James Mukhwana and Peter Kimani, and civilians John Ngige,  Gin Ammitou Abwao and Brian  Mwaniki Njue.

So far, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Renson Ingonga, has called four witnesses: a technician, his helper, a police officer and the IPOA expert.

The DPP and the witnesses painted to the High Court Judge Diana Kavedza the happenings of June 7, and  8, last year when Ojwang was detained at Central following an alleged complaint by the Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat.

Prosecutors Gikui Gichuhi, Duncan Ondimu and Jalson Makori, in their opening statement on behalf of Ingonga, said that the evidence gathered pointed to a planned murder plot.

“ Medical evidence will establish that Albert Ojwang died from blunt force head injuries, neck compression and multiple injuries sustained over his body — injuries wholly inconsistent with any suggestion that he merely struck his own head against a wall. Indeed, My Lady, the prosecution shall invite the Court to find that the physical evidence is wholly inconsistent with the explanation initially advanced,” the court heard.

The witnesses, on the other hand, narrated a plot to conceal the murder, including tampering with the Digital Video Recorder’s hard disks by formatting them.

The case continues in December.