Five Kenyan police officers appeared in court Wednesday, suspected of helping a man accused of murdering and dismembering dozens of women escape from a capital Nairobi jail cell, reports AFP.

Police had launched a manhunt Tuesday after alleged serial killer Collins Jumaisi and 12 Eritreans broke out of a police station in an upmarket area of the Kenyan capital.

Jumaisi, 33, was described by police as a "psychopathic serial killer with no respect for human life" when he arrested last month after the horrific discovery of a number of mutilated bodies in a garbage dump in a slum area of the Kenyan capital.

He and the other detainees appeared to have escaped by cutting through a wire mesh roof at the station.

"Our preliminary investigations indicate that the escape was aided by insiders," acting national police chief Gilbert Masengeli said Tuesday.

Five out of eight officers who were arrested over the escape appeared in a Nairobi court on Wednesday, with police seeking an order to detain them for another 14 days in order to complete their investigations.