Kenya: A Kikuyu Suspect

The slight, light-skinned young Kenyan was hustled into the magistrate's courtroom by a squad of Nairobi cops.

The proceedings against him lasted barely ten minutes, and within the hour the prisoner was locked inside a heavily guarded cell in prison. Only then did police announce last week that they had placed charges against the suspected killer of Tom Mboya, the pro-Western Minister for Economic Planning and Development who was gunned down outside a Nairobi pharmacy last month.

In accordance with Kenyan law, authorities, pending the trial, would give no information about their suspect beyond his name: Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge. That...