International human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims to have strong evidence that the Kenya Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) has carried out a series of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
Based on interview research conducted between November 2013 and June 2014, the group has documented more than thirty cases of terrorism suspects being badly mistreated, killed, beaten and abducted. Suspects were allegedly shot dead in public places, abducted from vehicles and courtrooms, beaten badly during arrest, detained in isolated blocks and denied contact with their families and access to lawyers, the group says. HRW called on Kenya to thoroughly investigate the allegations of human rights abuses and urged the US to suspend donor support to the ATPU.
The ATPU has previously come under criticism by other human rights groups. Last year the Kenyan human rights group Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) and the Open Society Justice Initiative issued a report calling on the US and the UK to suspend financial support to the ATPU. The report’s release followed the completion in May of a new ATPU headquarters in Nairobi, which was partially funded by international anti-terror agencies. The facility increased technological capabilities and physical space for the ATPU, whose mission is to coordinate and carry out anti-terrorism operations within Kenya in support of the international War on Terror. The unit’s primary focus of late is Kenya’s second-largest city, Mombasa, because the port city has become a major recruitment target for the al-Qaeda linked Islamist group al-Shabaab based in Somalia.
The counterterrorism police unit receives significant support and training from the United States and the UK.
