Faith Odhiambo Exposes How Police Officers Tamper With OBs

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President, Faith Odhiambo, has exposed some of the tricks that police officers use to frustrate civilians and even lawyers following up on arrested persons.
Speaking during the launch of the Baseline Report on Police Accountability on Tuesday, Odhiambo claimed that these included tampering with the Occurrence Books (OBs).
For instance, she claimed that the police officers recording the arrests would deliberately misspell the names of the suspects to deter visits from outsiders.
“I discovered a new trick is to register them in the occurrence books under a different name from the name of the individual,” she claimed.
“When you come to ask, because you will get information from different quarters that after a certain number of people have been arrested, and you demand the occurrence book, if the name is Silas, they will write Cyrus or Peter, and they insist that it is not the same person.”
This, she said, would deter people from seeing the person they are looking for, unless they apply a bit of force and keep returning and demanding the same.
Another trick she revealed was that of police officers tampering with the time of arrests in the OBs to provide them with a loophole to hold the arrested persons for as long as possible.
In some cases, she alleged that the OBs could be updated even 24 hours after the arrest, ensuring individuals spend at least 48 hours before arraignment in court.
“Sometimes they refuse to record the person so that they don’t find fault with the judiciary, so 24 hours will go by while you have been there for 48 hours because by the time you were recorded, it had taken quite a bit, so that they ensure to keep you there as long as possible,” she added.
The Kenyan law dictates that an arrested person must be arraigned in court within 24 hours of arrest, as perArticle 49(1)(f) of the Constitution.
If the 24-hour period expires on a weekend or a public holiday, the law mandates that the arrested person be presented before a court the next day.
Extensions could also occur in case of a special court order if the police seek more time for their investigation, particularly for serious offences.
Failure to adhere to these directives is considered unconstitutional and could jeopardise the case proceedings and even lead to its dismissal.
At the arraignment, a suspect can either be charged with a crime, informed of the reasons for their continued detention, or released.