Six convicts' bodies exhumed in Kenya jail scandal

NYERI, Kenya (Reuters) -- The bodies of six Kenyan convicts allegedly beaten to death in a jail break in September were exhumed on Wednesday for post-mortem examinations in one of the country's worst prison scandals.

After growing pressure from human rights activists and the local press, a court ruled this week that a team led by an Amnesty International-appointed pathologist from Norway could dig up the bodies for new examinations

Police initially said the six were shot dead trying to escape from King'ong'o prison in Nyeri, central Kenya, but a government pathologist said they died after falling off a perimeter wall.

Human rights groups that studied the government post mortem and interviewed a survivor of the escape attempt say the "King'ong'o Six" were tortured to death. Local newspapers have quoted sources saying the prisoners even had their eyes gouged out.

"We do think that the government has been less than frank," said Ling Kituyi, executive director of the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), a body sponsored by the British Foreign Office that investigates torture in Kenya.

"If you hit your head after falling from a wall you may crack your skull, but you won't smash in your face, break your legs and arms and have injuries all over," she told Reuters.

A small crowd of relatives of the victims, officials, curious bystanders and children crowded around the site of a mass grave in Nyeri, 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday.

Three gravediggers, clad in face masks and thick rubber gloves, dug down and silently lifted out the prisoners' remains, each body wrapped in black polyethylene dustbin liners.

The occasional breeze which gave relief from the heat also sent the crowd, many of whom held handkerchiefs to their faces, scattering as it wafted the stench toward them.

Relatives said their loved ones were buried without their knowledge and angrily accused prison officials and the government of barbarism.

"The wounds are all inside my body," said Daniel Njoroge, the father of one of the victims. "This might be happening in another prison right now. Today God has revealed what is really happening in Kenya."

Kituyi said the exhumation was a victory for IMLU, which has spearheaded a two-month campaign for a proper investigation but accused government officials and police of trying to block the investigation at every turn.

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