A Kenyan man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death over an attack on British tourists is suing the Metropolitan police over its role in the case.
Ali Kololo was imprisoned for more than a decade in what his lawyers called “appalling conditions” before being released when his conviction was quashed in 2023.
He was the only suspect prosecuted over the murder of publishing executive David Tebbutt and the kidnapping of his wife, Judith, on a remote Kenyan island resort in 2011. Tebbutt was shot dead. His wife was taken into Somalia and released following a ransom payment six months later.
Kololo, who is now in his mid-40s, is seeking compensation from the Met, accusing the force of providing misleading evidence to a Kenyan court that played a key role in his wrongful conviction. The first stage of the case will be heard at the Central London county court on Friday.
Emails seen by the Observer reveal that the Home Office authorised the deployment of Met police officers to Kenya despite knowing the case could result in the death penalty.
Reprieve, a legal charity representing Kololo, said the decision violated government rules against providing assistance that “might directly or significantly contribute to … use of the death penalty, both the imposition of the death sentence and executions”.
Preetha Gopalan, Reprieve’s joint head of UK litigation, said a series of emails between the Home Office and Foreign Office, released after a subject access request, showed a “level of panic” about Kololo having been sentenced to death for the offence of robbery with violence.
Kololo, a young father who worked as a honey-gatherer and woodcutter on the island where the Tebbutts were holidaying, was accused of directing the gang behind the attack to a hut where the couple were sleeping.
Judith Tebbutt later told the Sunday Times she believed that Kololo was innocent and had been scapegoated by Scotland Yard. Kololo’s lawyers have accused former detective chief inspector Neil Hibberd, who has retired, of omitting key information that cast doubt on the prosecution’s allegations that a footprint linked Kololo to the crime scene.
Reprieve said a Kenyan court was not told that the Met Police’s analysis of a partially washed-away imprint on a sandy beach had been inconclusive. Kololo did not fit a pair of shoes presented as a match for the footprint during his trial, and said he was barefoot on the day in question.
Gopalan said the Met’s support for the prosecution and Hibberd’s evidence in court was “the nail in the coffin to secure the conviction”. She added: “His conviction rested heavily on the footprint, but the whole time, the Met had analysis that undermined the evidence.”
An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that Hibberd would have had a case to answer for gross misconduct if he were still a serving officer, but that it could take no action after his retirement.
Emails released by the Home Office to Reprieve also show that officials were warned in 2012 that “the death penalty remains on Kenya’s statute books and may be available for one of the offences”, but went on to authorise the Met deployment for the case.
“The death penalty was mandatory for this offence,” Gopalan said. She added that there was a moratorium on executions in Kenya at the time, but this was “not a sufficient assurance”.
The Foreign Office advised the Home Office that it would “not be seeking explicit assurances on the use of the death penalty from Kenyan authorities” because the moratorium made it a “low risk”.
Gopalan said Kololo’s trial had also been structurally unfair because he did not have legal representation and had to cross-examine 20 witnesses, including Hibberd, himself. He was illiterate and did not have an interpreter for proceedings that were not conducted in his first language.
Kololo said in a statement via Reprieve: “Being sentenced to death was torture in itself. It’s by sheer luck that I was able to come out of prison with my mind intact. I pray for my case to succeed so that I can live like other human beings.
“I used to work hard to look after my family but my time in prison has left a big gap, which is very difficult to fill. My health has deteriorated and I cannot go back to doing the work I used to do. I have to struggle to provide for my children and look after my mother.”
Gopalan said the Metropolitan police should “put its hands up” over the case, apologise and pay appropriate compensation. “[Kololo] is lucky to be free and to be able to mount a claim, but the question remains: is this still happening?” she said.
“Is the UK government continuing to provide this kind of assistance to countries around the world and becoming complicit in human rights violations because they haven’t learned the lessons from the past?”
Home Office minister Diana Johnson said last week: “Under Section 26 of the Police Act 1996, the Home Secretary is responsible for providing consent for the deployment of all serving police officers and staff from England and Wales forces overseas and where advice or assistance is being provided to a foreign agency. The Section 26 process is a rigorous process undertaken by officials … exercising due diligence on any proposed police deployments, including that assistance overseas meets the UK’s human rights obligations and values.”
The Metropolitan police said it could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
