A human rights group and community activists in Kenya filed a lawsuit Saturday against U.S. agricultural conglomerate Del Monte after it was accused of assault and murder at its sprawling pineapple plantation near Nairobi.
The complaint filed with the Supreme Court of Kenya also comes from citizens who say they were attacked by Del Monte security officers, as well as relatives of alleged victims.
The company, which employs 6,000 people in Kenya and has been accused of abuse and violence in the East African country in the past, was initially unable to comment on the complaint.
A police investigation is underway after the bodies of four men were discovered in the Thika River near this plantation on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Del Monte accuses them of stealing pineapples there.
The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, concerns a land ownership conflict between the global corporation, which specializes in the production and distribution of fruit and vegetables, and a local community that claims their ancestral land.
The complaint states that residents have long been traversing the 4,000-acre plantation, “resulting in conflicts with security personnel who attack, beat, torture, mutilate, rape and/or kill the intruders.”
The complainants, who denounce “numerous murders,” accuse the guards of beating people accused of theft to death, drowning them in water reservoirs or throwing them into the neighboring river.
Several plaintiffs say they have been victims of assaults by Del Monte guards in recent years. One said he was hit by a vehicle, another said he was sexually assaulted and then attacked with rocks as he fled.
They also accuse Del Monte of discharging wastewater contaminated with “toxic pesticides” that are classified as dangerous by the World Health Organization.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages and asking the Supreme Court to rule on possible violations of human rights, the environment and constitutional laws.
According to Kenyan media, the results of the autopsies of the four bodies published on Friday show that at least three of them drowned and also sustained injuries.
“Our preliminary investigation establishes beyond doubt that the four men were attacked before they were forcibly drowned,” said Kamanda Mucheke, a senior official at the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHCR), as quoted by the Daily Nation newspaper.
The American company had assured that the CCTV footage “did not show any fault on the part of Del Monte, but that the thieves fled towards the river after dropping the bags of stolen pineapples, trying to escape the security forces.”