Nairobi - A senior Kenyan official has denied a local media report of extrajudicial killings by police.
Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Interior, Joseph Nkaissery, told a media briefing on Tuesday that the allegations of extrajudicial killings were made in bad faith and were aimed at undermining anti-crime efforts.
"There is no policy whatsoever within the police to engage in extrajudicial killings as Kenya is a country that is governed by law," Nkaissery said.
He was responding to a local newspaper report which on Sunday documented cases of extrajudicial killings by police. The report said the police killed 121 people from January to August, and have killed 262 people since 2015.
"This kind of record cannot warrant generalisation of alleged police killings that we continue to see in media reports," he added.
He however said the police, like any other large institutions, might harbour "a few rogue elements".
"While we acknowledge a small number of officers may have wrongly used their firearms, today we have a number of them facing prosecution while others are subjected to disciplinary action including dismissals from the service," he said.
In July, four Kenyan police officers were charged with the murder of a lawyer and two others, which sparked protests against extrajudicial killings.
Xinhua