Relating to the real world, stories in todays news.
Kenya shopping mall attack: Nairobi hostages were tortured before they were
killed, says police doctor
Catrina Stewart
Thursday 26 September 2013
Rumours of rapes, disfigurement and beheadings are rife in Kenya’s
capital
A police doctor scouring Nairobi’s Westgate mall for bodies after a four-day
siege by Islamist gunmen that claimed dozens of lives has said victims were
tortured before they died, according to a Kenyan newspaper.
“Those are not allegations. Those are f****** truths,” the doctor, a
forensics expert, told The Star newspaper. “They removed balls, eyes,
ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a pencil then they tell you
to write your name with the blood. They drive knives inside a child’s body.
Actually, if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping,
fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers.”
The information could not be independently verified, but William Pike, the
British editor of The Star, said the reporters working on the story had
been given similar accounts from other sources. “We have [the source] on a
recording,” Mr Pike said. “He was talking very graphically, and he was very
angry.”
The horrifying details of what may be the last moments of some of the
hostages at the hands of terrorists from Somalia’s al-Shabaab movement come amid
mounting public anger over the authorities silence about the details of the
siege. Many questions remain, such as what happened to the potentially dozens of
hostages still unaccounted for? What happened to the attackers? And what caused
parts of Westgate to collapse in the final hours of the siege?
Police have asked for patience as they begin the painstaking work of
gathering evidence and searching for bodies, with Interior Minister Joseph Ole
Lenku warning it could take up to a week to complete the search. He has said
that an “insignificant” number of bodies are still trapped.
Gunmen armed with machine guns and grenades stormed the Westgate mall on
Saturday lunchtime, shooting indiscriminately, and killing at least 61 people. A
further six security officers died in attempts to rout the militants. During the
siege, rescuers evacuated many survivors, but reports suggested hostages were
being held by militants. Kenya’s Red Cross says that 71 people are still listed
as missing.
Ghoulish accounts on the fate of the hostages have circulated Nairobi and
there have been claims that the military was forced to blow up part of the
Westgate complex not just to bring the siege to an end, but to end the appalling
suffering of hostages amid reports that hostages were raped, and others beheaded
and their heads thrown out of the windows.
Mourners at the
funeral of radio presenter Ruhila Adatia Sood
None of these reports could be verified amid what is a febrile atmosphere in
the city following the worst terrorist attack on Kenyan soil since the US
embassy bombings by Al-Qa’ida in 1998 that killed more than 200.
Allegations of rape are not commonly linked with Islamist militants, although
there are increasing numbers of rape cases reported in Somalia after long years
of conflict.
Meanwhile, Kenyan authorities are also facing questions over whether they had
any intelligence on an impending attack, which a Somali al-Shabaab chief said
was a “message to Westerners” who had “backed Kenya’s invasion [of Somalia],” a
reference to Kenya’s 2011 incursion aimed at crushing the militant movement.
Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS), widely accused by politicians of
failing to pick up chatter about the attack, has insisted it did warn the police
and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its
warnings went unheeded, The Star reported.
According to the same report, a pregnant policewoman avoided Westgate after
her brother, who works for Kenyan intelligence, warned her of a terror attack.
“She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to
visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior
officer was quoted as saying.
killed, says police doctor
Catrina Stewart
Thursday 26 September 2013
Rumours of rapes, disfigurement and beheadings are rife in Kenya’s
capital
A police doctor scouring Nairobi’s Westgate mall for bodies after a four-day
siege by Islamist gunmen that claimed dozens of lives has said victims were
tortured before they died, according to a Kenyan newspaper.
“Those are not allegations. Those are f****** truths,” the doctor, a
forensics expert, told The Star newspaper. “They removed balls, eyes,
ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a pencil then they tell you
to write your name with the blood. They drive knives inside a child’s body.
Actually, if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping,
fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers.”
The information could not be independently verified, but William Pike, the
British editor of The Star, said the reporters working on the story had
been given similar accounts from other sources. “We have [the source] on a
recording,” Mr Pike said. “He was talking very graphically, and he was very
angry.”
The horrifying details of what may be the last moments of some of the
hostages at the hands of terrorists from Somalia’s al-Shabaab movement come amid
mounting public anger over the authorities silence about the details of the
siege. Many questions remain, such as what happened to the potentially dozens of
hostages still unaccounted for? What happened to the attackers? And what caused
parts of Westgate to collapse in the final hours of the siege?
Police have asked for patience as they begin the painstaking work of
gathering evidence and searching for bodies, with Interior Minister Joseph Ole
Lenku warning it could take up to a week to complete the search. He has said
that an “insignificant” number of bodies are still trapped.
Gunmen armed with machine guns and grenades stormed the Westgate mall on
Saturday lunchtime, shooting indiscriminately, and killing at least 61 people. A
further six security officers died in attempts to rout the militants. During the
siege, rescuers evacuated many survivors, but reports suggested hostages were
being held by militants. Kenya’s Red Cross says that 71 people are still listed
as missing.
Ghoulish accounts on the fate of the hostages have circulated Nairobi and
there have been claims that the military was forced to blow up part of the
Westgate complex not just to bring the siege to an end, but to end the appalling
suffering of hostages amid reports that hostages were raped, and others beheaded
and their heads thrown out of the windows.
Mourners at the
funeral of radio presenter Ruhila Adatia Sood
None of these reports could be verified amid what is a febrile atmosphere in
the city following the worst terrorist attack on Kenyan soil since the US
embassy bombings by Al-Qa’ida in 1998 that killed more than 200.
Allegations of rape are not commonly linked with Islamist militants, although
there are increasing numbers of rape cases reported in Somalia after long years
of conflict.
Meanwhile, Kenyan authorities are also facing questions over whether they had
any intelligence on an impending attack, which a Somali al-Shabaab chief said
was a “message to Westerners” who had “backed Kenya’s invasion [of Somalia],” a
reference to Kenya’s 2011 incursion aimed at crushing the militant movement.
Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS), widely accused by politicians of
failing to pick up chatter about the attack, has insisted it did warn the police
and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its
warnings went unheeded, The Star reported.
According to the same report, a pregnant policewoman avoided Westgate after
her brother, who works for Kenyan intelligence, warned her of a terror attack.
“She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to
visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior
officer was quoted as saying.
Are the police losing our trust?
TV3 The Vote
The thin blue line – the police are there to keep us safe and enforce the
law. But do we still have confidence that they’re on our side? Or are they
losing our trust?
Experts says that the Arthur Allan Thomas case and Springbok Tour opened the
door to doubt, and that door opened wider with the Louise Nicholas rape case and
a critical Commission of Inquiry report. But where do we stand now?
The police’s own public survey says satisfaction with the police is at an
all-time high, with 79 percent of respondents having “full” or “quite a lot” of
trust in the police. Reported crime has been dropping since the 1990s and we
were reminded again in August of the every day heroism shown by every day police
officers, when Constable Deane O’Connor leapt from a Tauranga bridge into the
cold harbour to save a car crash victim from drowning.
Yet questions are still asked as more stories are revealed of police
misconduct. In just the past fortnight we’ve seen Central District commander
Superintendent Russell Gibson apologise for describing a 10-year-old rape victim
as a "willing" participant in her sexual abuse. Is that a sign of an unhealthy
culture?
From the big cases such as David Bain, Teina Pora and the Kim Dotcom and
Tuhoe raids to smaller cases such Constable Lou Perese smuggling contraband to
prisoners and concerns about the police’s response to burglaries, reported
recently on Campbell Live, is our trust being undermined?
Meet the teams below, then watch the arguments for and against on Wednesday
October 9.
You vote, you decide
Are the police loosing our trust?
RESULTS: 56% NO 44% YES
TV3 The Vote
The thin blue line – the police are there to keep us safe and enforce the
law. But do we still have confidence that they’re on our side? Or are they
losing our trust?
Experts says that the Arthur Allan Thomas case and Springbok Tour opened the
door to doubt, and that door opened wider with the Louise Nicholas rape case and
a critical Commission of Inquiry report. But where do we stand now?
The police’s own public survey says satisfaction with the police is at an
all-time high, with 79 percent of respondents having “full” or “quite a lot” of
trust in the police. Reported crime has been dropping since the 1990s and we
were reminded again in August of the every day heroism shown by every day police
officers, when Constable Deane O’Connor leapt from a Tauranga bridge into the
cold harbour to save a car crash victim from drowning.
Yet questions are still asked as more stories are revealed of police
misconduct. In just the past fortnight we’ve seen Central District commander
Superintendent Russell Gibson apologise for describing a 10-year-old rape victim
as a "willing" participant in her sexual abuse. Is that a sign of an unhealthy
culture?
From the big cases such as David Bain, Teina Pora and the Kim Dotcom and
Tuhoe raids to smaller cases such Constable Lou Perese smuggling contraband to
prisoners and concerns about the police’s response to burglaries, reported
recently on Campbell Live, is our trust being undermined?
Meet the teams below, then watch the arguments for and against on Wednesday
October 9.
You vote, you decide
Are the police loosing our trust?
RESULTS: 56% NO 44% YES