Bashir Mohamed: What autopsy reveals about death of Somali-American businessman

A post-mortem on the body of the slain Somali-American businessman Mohamud Bashir Mohamed has revealed that he died from strangulation.

Family lawyer Charles Madowo Monday said Mohamed was tortured before he was killed and thrown into River Nyamindi in Mwea, Kirinyaga County as it had injuries inflicted by a blunt object. It also had burns on various parts.

“The immediate cause of death as per the post-mortem report is death by strangulation but there is also quite a bit of evidence of torture on his body. There’s trauma on the head consistent with being hit with a blunt object, burns on his body and torture on his toes and nails,” said Mr Madowo.

The post-mortem that took slightly over an hour was led by Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor in the presence of two other independent pathologists, Mr Madowo, DCI detectives and a family representative.

Call for inquest

Samples were also picked from the Mohamed’s body for further analysis at the government chemist.

“What we hope is that a proper inquest shall be done and the people responsible for this brought to book. Whatever the circumstance that someone finds themselves in, we are a country that is governed by the rule of law and everybody is entitled to due process and we hope that that due process will be accorded to the family of Bashir and to Bashir as well,” added the lawyer.

Mohamed’s father-in-law Rashid Ali Omar said the body will be buried at the Lang’ata Muslim cemetery after Asr prayers at the Masjid Salaam Mosque in South C, Nairobi.

"We will never forgive those who killed Bashir and we pray that God will punish those who are shedding innocent blood," said Mr Ali.

"He is my son-in-law, a shrewd and responsible man who was always joyful and of good character. He was loving to everybody as you even saw in his last days he was even giving people money for Idd; that was the way he was, a very generous man," said Mr Omar.