A Kenyan court on Thursday ordered 16 motorcycle taxi riders to be remanded in custody for a fortnight over a vicious attack on a female diplomat as police hunted for the alleged ringleader of the assault.
The young woman was attacked in daylight hours by a gang of taxi riders — commonly known as boda-boda — after a traffic accident on Friday, police said.
Sixteen riders were rounded up Monday after a viral video of the incident showed the men grabbing at the woman’s clothing and groping her as she screamed for help from inside the car, whose door had been forced open.
On Thursday, the Nairobi magistrate’s court ruled that the case was “of public interest” and ordered the suspects to remain in custody for 15 days to allow police time to complete investigations.
Court documents seen by AFP described the victim as a diplomat based in Nairobi, but did not give her country of affiliation.
The riders also stole a phone valued at 130,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,100, 1,000 euros) during the scuffle, according to the documents.
Sexual assault in the East African country carries a penalty of up to life imprisonment while robbery with violence could attract a death penalty.
Crackdown
The attack has sparked a furore in Kenya, with President Uhuru Kenyatta ordering a crackdown on motorcycle taxis this week.
Demonstrators staged a protest in Nairobi on Tuesday over the continued harassment by riders.
Transport authorities have since carried out random checks on riders, prompting many unlicensed drivers to stay off the roads and causing fares to shoot up as a result.
The alleged ringleader of the attack has however evaded arrest, escaping through a sewer duct as the police pursued him, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said in a statement.
“It is only a matter of time before we arrest him,” police said, ordering him to surrender within 24 hours.
Motorcycle taxi drivers in Kenya are typically young men and are notorious for breaching the highway code and assaulting drivers after collisions.
The two-wheelers are a popular mode of transport in East Africa’s economic powerhouse, which lacks a proper public commuter system.
There are at least 1.4 million motorcycles registered in Kenya, according to a 2018 government data, with the majority used as taxis.
The riders have often been accused by campaign groups of snatch-and grab robberies and harassing other road users, with abuses often ranging from derogatory comments to rape.
Boda-boda riders were in 2019 classified as a “threat to national security” by an interior ministry research unit.
