The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has issued an apology for circulating false photos depicting Azimio protesters allegedly committing acts of violence during Friday’s protests by the Raila -led faction.
Through a statement, the DCI stated that it was a mix-up on information shared by the public after the media pointed out the glaring discrepancies.
“The Directorate of Criminal Investigations wishes to unreservedly apologize to the public for the mix-up of images in yesterday’s communication, which was meant to appeal for information regarding the whereabouts of criminal suspects involved in Monday’s illegal demonstrations,” DCI said on social media.
“The mix-up was partly occasioned by the overwhelming information that we had received via the #FichuakwaDCI online platform regarding the reported incidents of violence.”
The DCI had yesterday stated that it had launched a manhunt for the culprits behind the chaos on Monday during the Azimio ‘maandamano’ protests.
Accompanied with the statement were photos of different people whom the DCI had appealed to the public for information regarding their whereabouts.
Further, the DCI directed the ‘suspects’ to present themselves at the Serious Crimes offices at their headquarters.
DCI had claimed that the alleged criminals took advantage of the demonstrations and destroyed public property, attacked innocent members of the public and hurled projectiles who were on duty protecting life and property.
According to findings by various fact-checks, some of the photos are from as back as 2008 and others not from Kenya.
One of the image was from a protest in Burundi and was used in an article on Al Jazeera amid political unrest in 2015.
Earlier, NARC-Kenya leader Martha Karua had called out the DCI after various fact-checks indicated that the photos of violence in question were false and were from other countries during past protests.
She claimed that the move by DCI was to disrupt the protests by the Azimio One Kenya coalition.
“DCI can no longer be trusted to the police or investigate fairly after the deliberately misleading photos debacle exposed by the media. This confirms that the illegitimate regime used sections of the police and thugs to brutalize protesters last Monday and to cause destruction and are planning to do a repeat on Monday 27,” she stated.
