Mob justice

At first, I thought my friend was sleep talking. It was 2.30am and we were asleep in a guest house, in the heart of Nairobi after a long working day. This was not a regular time for phone calls but it was his wife. She was phoning to tell him that there were robbers in the compound at home and that they had been caught red-handed. In the scuffle, one had got away while the other was captured by the neighbours. When something like this happens in Kenya, people take the law into their own hands.

My friend informed me that the captured thief had been beaten and lynched by the community. I’ve been told by several locals that this is a common way of dealing with thieves in Kenya. No trial. No investigation. In the morning the police simply came to take the remains of the body. The legal system is only used if the community decide to bring someone to trial. This takes a lot of work and so you end up with a system which is encourages this sort of barbaric response.