Police officers tortured two men to death and stuffed raw maize down their throats, then tried to write it off as mob justice.

It took four hours for James Maina and Daniel Nuthu to die. Four hours of agonizing, systematic torture at the hands of those sworn to protect them. In a chilling case that has exposed the dark underbelly of policing in Kahawa West, autopsy results have revealed a level of depravity that borders on sadism: the two men were not just beaten; they were force-fed raw maize and red chili peppers as they gasped for their final breaths.

The horror began at noon last Sunday. By 4:00 PM, both men were cold in the morgue. The police report, filed with bureaucratic indifference at the Kiwanja Police Post, told a simple, convenient lie: "Mob Justice." But the dead bodies of Maina and Nuthu have screamed the truth from the autopsy table, dismantling the official cover-up and pointing the finger squarely at a Senior Sergeant in the Administration Police Service.

The Maize in the Mouth

The post-mortem examination conducted at the City Mortuary is a catalogue of horrors. Both men died from severe blunt force trauma, their bodies mapped with the purple and black contusions of a relentless beating. But it is the contents of their stomachs that have shocked even veteran pathologists. Large chunks of undigested raw maize and crushed red chili peppers were found in their digestive tracts. Residue of the same mixture was found packed into their mouths.

"This was not a meal," a source privy to the autopsy revealed. "This was torture. They were forced to swallow this mixture while being beaten. It is a signature of impunity—a message sent through pain." The presence of undigested food confirms they died almost immediately after the assault, contradicting police claims that they were found injured and died while receiving treatment.

The Cover-Up Unravels

Lucy Muthoni, James Maina’s mother, stood at the Kenyatta Memorial Funeral Home, her grief turning to a cold, hard rage. Her son, who would have turned 30 in July, was not a thief. He was walking past a farm when he was accosted by the officer, who was alone in his private car. There was no mob. There was only the officer, and later, the farm owner.

• Refused Care: When the extent of the injuries became apparent, the attackers panicked. Instead of an ambulance, they dragged the dying men to the Kiwanja Police Post to book them for theft. The officers on duty, seeing the men vomiting blood and unable to stand, refused to book them, demanding they be taken to the hospital.
• The "Mob" Ghost: Investigators have found no evidence of a gathering crowd or public lynching. The "mob" was a fiction created to shield a senior officer who decided to act as judge, jury, and executioner over a sack of maize.

The silence from the Administration Police headquarters is deafening. In Kahawa West, the community is not waiting for official statements. They know what they saw. They know who did it. And they know that James and Daniel didn't die from a mob; they died because a policeman decided their lives were worth less than a cob of corn.