Officers accused of tampering victim's statement in safari sexual assault case

A case against investigative officers accused of tampering with evidence in the investigation into the sexual assault case onboard a safari boat in late June, has been lodged.

Legal representatives of the 27-year-old Kenyan woman, who was allegedly groped by two men aboard a safari boat, took to Twitter on Sunday, revealing that the case against the investigative officers, has been lodged at the Prosecutor General’s Office, Maldives Police Service as well as the National Integrity Commission (NIC).

A meeting to review the victim’s statement in connection to the assault was held on Sunday, after stalling for months.

In an interview with RaajjeMV, Pauline Nduta Gichuru's lawyers, Noorbaan Fahmy and Shafeea Riza revealed that the meeting did not commence on time and that it was halted halfway through, with a promise of presenting the victim’s video statement, which was taken in September.

Although they were told that it would only take a short while to recommence, it took a long time and not before long, Shafeea is to have received a private video message showing investigative officers slandering them and attempting to tamper with the victim’s statement.

Upon the conclusion of the meeting the lawyers confronted them, to learn that the message was sent without their knowledge; the officers were unaware that their private skype meeting was recorded.

“They clearly wouldn’t have wanted us to hear all this in the first place”, said Shafeea, who noted that there have been other instances where police negligence in the case has been observed. As such, they had been stalling the statement review for months and are also accused of wasting the victim’s time.

The victim is in Kenya and goes through a lot of trouble to ensure she attends these meetings, she is not a rich client and she is facing hindrances only to find that the authorities are just wasting time during the meetings, said the lawyers.

They have also raised the issue of negligence observed on the police institution’s end in connection to the safari rape case, accusing them of “repeated gross negligence”.

The case was immediately forwarded to relevant authorities after the victim’s lawyers, Noorbaan and Shafeea received the video message.

Highlighting that there were so many instances of barefaced lies and negligence including countless wrongdoings, the lawyers noted that they remained silent in the hope for justice and because the case was ongoing. However, they now wish to prove that injustice within the institution, exists.

In light of this, the lawyers urged the police institution to not base their investigative work around any actions that many hamper or soil the victim’s rights and to work with integrity, in a way that does not compromise the people’s trust.

Strongly condemning the gross misconduct by the investigative officers, lawyers Noorbaan and Shafeea stressed that these things will keep on repeating if there are no professional ethics, which has been absent in the institution’s work, for long.

The video message in question, was received by one of the lawyers at around 5:25pm on Sunday and immediate action has been sought from the Commissioner of Police, Mohamed Hameed as well.

Investigative officers are heard mocking the lawyers in the video, which is now circulating on social media. They are heard saying that the lawyers “were infuriated” and that “the lawyers do not see their errors”. Speaking to RaajjeMV the lawyers stressed on the importance of punctuality given the victim’s current state, which was the reason they had expressed their discontent and concern at the beginning of a much-delayed meeting.

RaajjeMV failed to get a comment from the police institution at the time of publishing, as they failed to answer the station’s calls.

In early September, the police had revealed that they “are nearly done with the investigation”, the case was filed on June 26.

Authorities drew criticism from the public due to delays in prosecution, and there was a lot of controversy over the case in general, from the very beginning.

Two men were arrested under allegations of sexual assault, early morning the same day as the assault and they were released, despite them having been intoxicated and the responding officer failed to do alcohol consumption tests at the scene.

There are also accusations of political influence, within the institution, given that reports indicate the suspects have links to powerful figures.