The father of Albert Omondi Ojwang has called on the courts to ensure that Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat is arrested and prosecuted, accusing him of orchestrating his son’s abduction, torture, and death while in police custody.
In a replying affidavit filed in support of a petition dated June 24, 2025, Meshack Ojwang describes a disturbing sequence of events he believes points to a deliberate attempt to shield a senior police officer from accountability.
“I am the biological father of the late Albert Omondi Ojwang, the subject of this Petition,” Meshack Ojwang says. He adds that his son “was a law-abiding Kenyan citizen and a young man with a promising future whose life was brutally cut short while in the custody of the Kenya Police Service.”
The affidavit states that Albert was arrested on June 7, 2025, at the family home by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, allegedly acting under DIG Lagat’s instructions. Authorities reportedly accused Albert of circulating information linking the DIG to corruption within the police service.
Meshack Ojwang claims he later learned that his son was secretly held at Central Police Station in Nairobi, where he “was subjected to torture, humiliation, and severe beatings on the instructions of DIG Eliud Lagat.”
Albert Ojwang did not survive. According to the affidavit, he “succumbed to grievous injuries inflicted on him while in police custody, including blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation.”
Shortly after Albert’s death, the Inspector General of Police declared that he had died by suicide after banging his head against a cell wall. Meshack Ojwang disputes this account, citing a post-mortem report that “completely ruled out suicide and confirmed that his death was due to injuries consistent with torture and strangulation.”
Despite the findings, he alleges that no action has been taken against DIG Lagat. Lower-ranking officers, he says, are the only ones facing trial in High Court at Kibera under Criminal Case No. E010 of 2025. Meshack Ojwang describes this as “a deliberate cover-up scheme meant to shield DIG Eliud Lagat from accountability,” insisting that these officers were following orders.
He further refers to Senate proceedings in which DCI officials reportedly acknowledged that Lagat “remained as the prime suspect,” indicating that no proper process ever cleared him.
“As a grieving father, I am deeply troubled that the prosecution appears to shield DIG Eliud Lagat by shifting the entire blame onto the officers that were acting on his instructions and command,” he swears in the affidavit.
He is now asking the High Court to suspend the ongoing criminal trial and direct authorities to arrest and charge DIG Lagat. “Justice for my son will not be realized unless the DIG Eliud Kipkoech Lagat is charged and prosecuted as the lead suspect in this matter,” Meshack Ojwang states.
The father is also seeking court intervention to prevent what he fears will be “a miscarriage of justice and denial of closure to me and my family.”
