Kenyan police are investigating the death of a schoolboy accused by teachers of cheating on an exam and punished with 22 lashes. On this subject writing edition of L’Etoile.
Kelvin Kiptanui, 16, died in hospital on March 4. According to the hospital’s chief medical officer’s report, Kiptanui suffered from blood poisoning, severe pneumonia and a peptic ulcer. The document states that the death was not the result of an attack.
The school board questioned the findings of the medical report and demanded an autopsy with an independent expert to determine the exact cause of the student’s death.
School board president Joel Chemiron said two teachers hit Kiptanui 22 times with a stick as punishment for allegedly cheating on a physics test. According to the Star, Kiptanui was accepted into school two weeks before the incident.
The mother of the deceased student told the publication that her son was in good health when he left for school and by the time she was informed of the incident he was vomiting blood.
“If an autopsy shows that the cause of death was beatings by teachers, we will prosecute them for murder,” said the police chief of Kenya’s Tinderet district, whose remarks son Pulse Edition.
Kenyan human rights activists are demanding that the state’s Chief Medical Examiner conduct an autopsy with the involvement of the Independent Forensic Unit.
