Family want piece of cloth used in suicide of kin to rule out foul play

A family in Matete, Kakamega County now wants police officers at Matete Police Station to give them a piece of cloth that their kin used to commit suicide with while in a cell. They say they will use it to perform rituals before the burial.

Moses Wanaswa, a father of four and who was also a pastor in one of the local churches, was arrested on December 16, 2023 on allegations of defilement.

On December 18, police reported that the suspect had killed himself using a piece of cloth inside a police cell. But Wanaswa's family led by his father Kuranya Njemu is now demanding the alleged piece of cloth from the police so that they can perform rituals to establish the cause of death.

They say police acted in secrecy and mischievously.

"In our Luhya culture when a person commits suicide the family is informed so it can perform its rituals. Some beat the dead and others hold special prayers. For us, we want to conduct prayers and other activities. But we must have the piece of cloth. We were to be the ones to take out the material used for committing suicide but in this case, none of those steps happened," says Njemu.

"We are demanding the piece of cloth from police but they have since declined claiming that the material is being used in the investigation. Ours is to perform our rituals so that if another person was involved in the death then let the spirit of the dead deal with that person and if it is not the case then we leave the rest to God."

Wanaswa's mother Roselyn Masinde says the spirit of his late son still roams and rotates on the piece of cloth, questioning why police took the body to the morgue on the same day without informing them.

"We were not informed on the material day. Why were police officers rushing the body to the morgue without our knowledge if they were not hiding anything? It is on that note that we demand to be given the piece of cloth so that we can do prayers and perform rituals by conducting special prayers," said Masinde.

John Kuranya maintains that his brother had been vocal against the existence of a betting machine that was banned by the government in the area. He says this put Wanaswa at loggerheads with security officials.

"We have a surge of insecurity in this area and my brother has been vocal about that and it has brought bad blood between him and the police whom he has accused of among other things of being compromised by owners of the machines. We want the piece of cloth to undergo cultural rituals, we want to know where the alleged material is," said Kuranya.

Kuranya said the family is bound to conduct special prayers and rituals to chase away bad omen and bar spirits from haunting the family if a person commits suicide and if not the rituals are done for the spirit to haunt those behind the death.

"We will give them back their piece of cloth as they are suggesting that it is part of the investigation. We only need the material for our rituals and prayers to conduct what our culture demands us to do in such happenings," he said.

"We want to set our brother free in his next life and his soul will fight for him and fight those who participated in any way in his death if at all that was the case. We are sure police are hiding something from the family but it will eventually come out whether they like it or not."

Kuranya alleges that police officers were after his brother for always being against them.

"We are asking ourselves if the alleged defilement victim's family wanted to withdraw the case, why would police demand Sh10,000 for my brother's release?

Kakamega County Police Commander Joseph Kigen told the Nairobian that police were investigating the matter to establish the cause of the death and if there were any external forces behind the death.