Four
men accused of helping al Qaeda-linked militants launch a deadly attack
on a Nairobi shopping mall last year have said they were tortured in
prison and a state-funded rights body is investigating, a lawyer for two
of them said on Monday.
The four had been due to attend court
last week but did not appear. A prison officer said the men could not
appear because they were undergoing “bed rest”, but he gave no details, Reuters reports.
Gunmen linked to the Somali Islamist
group al Shabaab attacked Westgate mall in September last year, a raid
that left at least 67 people dead. Four men were believed to have
carried out the raid but officials said they all died inside.
The four men on trial are accused of helping those gunmen in a range of ways. They all deny the charges.
“There was an incident at Kamiti maximum
prison on August 27 in which the authority unleashed severe torture and
assault on the inmates,” lawyer Chacha Mwita, representing two of the
accused, told the court.
“The commission that promotes and
protects human rights commenced its investigation last week on Friday
and recorded statements from inmates and prison warders,” he said.
There was no immediate formal comment
from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, but one official who
declined to be named said a probe had been carried out.
“We did our own investigations but the report is not yet ready,” the commission official told Reuters by telephone.
The officer in charge of Kamiti’s maximum
prison where the four have been held, Henry Kisungu, told the court the
authorities did not bring the men to court “as they are under bed rest
within prison”.
The court officials and lawyers will
visit the prison on Wednesday to make their own observations related to
the allegations of torture.
The trial of the four began in January and several witnesses have already been heard.
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