Deported British journalist says graft is a way of life in Kenya
Deported British journalist Jerome Starkey says endemic corruption in Kenya has made it normal for people to pay bribes in order to survive.
In an article published in the Times on Monday, Mr Starkey said his ordeal in the country reminded him of the danger posed by “corrupt Kenyan police and immigration officers”.
“Corruption and impunity are not stray threads of life in Kenya. They are its fabric. Parents pay a bribe to get their babies’ birth certificates. Children pay bribes to bury their parents,” he wrote.
“According to Kenya’s anti-corruption watchdog, there is a price to report a crime, go to college or get a job. But the culture of impunity costs more than money.”
DETAINED
Mr Starkey, who was ejected from the country 10 days ago after being detained at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, said he feared the police during his stay in Kenya, where he had been the correspondent for the Times.
“The only thing that scared me was the sight of the police. About once a week, when driving, I would have to navigate a checkpoint. Even now, my stomach churns at the thought, hoping that they wouldn’t pull me over,” he wrote in the aftermath of his ordeal.
Mr Starkey said he lived in a house that did not even have a gate, could walk in Nairobi slums with his equipment, meet with Al-Shabaab sympathisers or travel to Lamu, which the British Government considers a danger zone, but still never felt threatened.
“Policemen have a way of grinning as they conjure up a traffic crime and make a snap calculation of how much they can extract before they let you go.
KILLING OF BRITISH NATIONALS
“It is illegal for policemen to get in your car but they try it anyway, or confiscate your driving licence hoping you will ask them whether ‘there is a way of solving this’,” he wrote.
He also attacked the military, reviving reports of looting during the Westgate Mall siege in September 2013 when 67 people were killed.
Though footage emerged showing soldiers walking away with bulging shopping bags, KDF said the troops only carried water.
Mr Starkey alleges that security forces had a role in the killing of several British nationals in Kenya.
