CCTV footage recovered from Central Police Station has provided new details about the final hours of blogger and activist Albert Ojwang before his death in police custody. The recordings, which were presented before the High Court, are now a key part of the ongoing murder trial involving several police officers and other suspects linked to the case.
According to evidence presented in court by Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) investigator John Mutua, the footage captured events from the time Ojwang arrived at Central Police Station on June 7 until the hours before he was later taken out of the facility.
The recordings reportedly show that the 31-year-old arrived at the station in good physical condition.
The court heard that Ojwang was seen walking on his own and making phone calls before he was escorted into the holding area later that night.
Investigators said the footage showed him being led towards the cells at about 10:45 p.m. by four individuals. These included police officers James Mukhwana and former General Service Unit officer John Ngige, as well as two unidentified men whose faces were hidden by caps or hooded jackets.
Mutua told the court that the recordings also captured the movements of several officers inside the station during the night. Among those mentioned were former Central Police Station commander Samson Tallam, Peter Kimani, Mukhwana and other officers who were seen interacting at different times before and after Ojwang’s arrival.
A significant part of the investigation focused on the station’s CCTV system.
The court heard that investigators discovered attempts to interfere with surveillance records after Ojwang’s death. According to Mutua, the Digital Video Recorder was found without power, while storage drives showed signs of having been changed and formatted.
Investigators established that recording stopped after power cables connected to the system were disconnected. However, forensic experts were able to recover approximately 489 gigabytes of deleted footage.
This allowed IPOA to reconstruct the sequence of events that took place inside the station during the period Ojwang was in custody.
The recovered footage also showed Ojwang being moved through different sections of the station before being placed in the cells.
Additional CCTV recordings obtained from Mbagathi Hospital captured the moments when he was later transferred there after being removed from the police station.
The evidence forms part of the prosecution’s case against Samson Tallam, James Mukhwana, Peter Kimani, John Ngige, Jim Ambao and Brian Njue, who are facing murder charges in connection with Ojwang’s death.
Prosecutors have also alleged that there were efforts to interfere with evidence following the incident.
