{Detectives confess that they left the vehicle unsecured for more than 20 hours after the murder.}<\/p>\n
There was drama at Nairobi\u2019s Lee Funeral Home on Saturday when a senior police officer investigating the Thursday night murder of controversial businessman Jacob Juma admitted that it took detectives more than 20 hours to secure the vehicle he was killed in for forensic investigation.<\/p>\n
In the presence of the Sunday Nation team, Mr Martin Nyuguto, a police superintendent in charge of the Homicide Unit at the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) was at pains to explain to charged family and friends of the late Mr Juma why it took detectives so long to secure the Mercedes Benz car the businessman was driving when he was gunned down.<\/p>\n
Mr Nyuguto initially stated that the vehicle was secured at 3pm Friday, almost 18 hours after the cold blood murder near Lenana School. But pressed further by Mr Juma\u2019s family and friends led by city businessman Jimmy Wanjigi, Mr Nyuguto admitted that the vehicle was in fact secured at 7 pm on Friday, almost 21 hours after the murder.<\/p>\n
The admission by a man heading the investigations into the murder brought to the surface serious questions regarding the manner the killing has been handled so far.<\/p>\n
A clearly agitated Mr Wanjigi wondered why the officers could not act fast to secure the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was already polluted, because many other people were there,\u201d he said. Mr Nyuguto responded that the vehicle was properly secured.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I did yesterday was to seal the vehicle. And even now it is sealed. But we have not documented it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The revelation that DCI officers sealed the car late on Friday, and that they were yet to document its status, attracted even more fury from those present.<\/p>\n
NEVER SEALED THE VEHICLE<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the car, my friend, the media has been all over it. If they\u2019re taking photographs right inside, where is it sealed? You never sealed it. You tell us that you\u2019re going to get spent cartridges from the inside. Really?\u201d asked an angry relative.<\/p>\n
Mr Nyuguto said detectives were called to investigate the matter at 3pm on Friday but officers who had arrived at the scene earlier had recorded their findings.
\n\u201cWe tried to seal whatever we found,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The senior officer, who is leading a team investigating the killing, said DCI investigators visited the scene of the shooting on Friday afternoon in an attempt to reconstruct the events.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe drove there to search for a second time because we understand our colleagues who were there on Thursday night and early yesterday did not find the (spent) cartridge, according to what they told us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Juma\u2019s relatives, including his widow Miriam Wairimu, who had gone to the mortuary to attend the businessman\u2019s autopsy, also questioned why the detectives did not find a single cartridge from the scene.<\/p>\n
They also questioned Mr Nyuguto on why it took police long to open investigations into the killing.<\/p>\n
Questions were also raised why the vehicle was towed with the body inside before forensic investigations were done. The standard procedure would be for the scene of crime officers to take all the evidence before anything is moved or tampered with.<\/p>\n
At some point Mr Nyuguto realised the Sunday Nation was recording the conversation and arrested the reporter while trying to confiscate his equipment. It took the intervention of friends and family members present to resolve the situation. However, the officer still threatened to take undisclosed action against our journalist.<\/p>\n
It was after the bitter standoff that the autopsy, conducted by government pathologist Dorothy Njeru, started at around 3.15 pm.<\/p>\n
Mr Nyuguto appeared to make matters worse when he said that investigators would test the late businessman\u2019s blood to establish whether he had been intoxicated with any substance that could have hindered his ability to drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou find [that in] most of the incidents of this nature, somebody could have been drunk so that maybe when they\u2019re caught, they don\u2019t drive quickly or whatever,\u201d he told the gathering.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe will also take the DNA so that in future, if you get anything that you want to compare whether it was within the scene or contact with your brother, we can have something to compare with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Njeru, the pathologist, told the gathering that included family members who had travelled from Bungoma County that the preliminary results would be released as soon as the post-mortem was over.<\/p>\n
Speaking with the Sunday Nation as the autopsy went on, family spokesman Michael Juma, who is the deceased\u2019s brother, questioned why police at the Karen station could not make an effort to contact Mr Juma\u2019s family as soon as they learnt of the killing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no effort by anybody to give the family that distress call,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NO SPENT CATRIGES<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the time of death to the time issues were coming out in the media, it is said that the body was taken to Karen police station for some time before it was taken to City mortuary. And by the time family members went to Karen police station to confirm, they said the spent cartridges could not be found in the vehicle or at the scene; and even at the police station,\u201d he protested.<\/p>\n
He said the family had met earlier on Saturday and settled on Saturday May 14 as the tentative burial date for Mr Juma. The burial will take place at his Mungore village in Bungoma county.<\/p>\n
Bumula MP Boniface Otsiula, who said his rural home is barely 100 metres from Mr Juma\u2019s residence in Bungoma, demanded that the government involves officers from the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to allay any fears on what is being said, what I want to urge the government is that they must allow us a team of independent investigators, preferably the FBI, to come and team up with the local investigators; to be able to get the real truth as to what exactly happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The MP asked: \u201cHow could police leave the vehicle unsecured for over 24 hours? It means it has already been tampered with. How could they leave the vehicle unsecured?\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, DCI head Ndegwa Muhoro said the shooting was clearly murder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t tell as yet what it is all about. But if nothing was stolen, that is an indication it was a hit. Whether they were hired (hit men) or not it fits description of a hit on the face value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A police report filed from Karen police station showed two mobile phones, Sh6,500, various small amounts of foreign currency and \u201cpersonal documents\u201d were found in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have given very clear instructions to the County CID officer to personally supervise this investigation so that we get to the people behind it,\u201d Mr Muhoro said.<\/p>\n
Assistant Inspector General of Police Nicholas Kamwende is Nairobi\u2019s head of Criminal Investigations and has since taken charge of the probe.
\nMr Muhoro also directed officers from the Homicide unit at DCI headquarters headed by Mr Nyuguto to join the investigation.<\/p>\n
When the Nation visited the scene, we established that the vehicle had deviated from Ngong Road and taken a sharp tarmacked arc that leads to the newly built Southern bypass.<\/p>\n
The scene was littered with blood stained rubber hand gloves that were left by officers who responded to the shooting. There was also fragments of a shattered windscreen.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Cord leader Raila Odinga claimed the controversial businessman was executed by a special police unit. Mr Odinga who spoke at the homecoming party of Kajiado Central MP Memusi Kanchori claimed the Flying Squad officers had hunted down Mr Juma and killed him on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
He blamed the death on Mr Juma\u2019s vocal stand against corruption, including asking questions on the Eurobond.<\/p>\n
Mr Odinga, who was accompanied by Cord co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang\u2019ula said that only highly trained officers like the Flying Squad personnel could commit such a crime and get away with it.<\/p>\n
Mr Wetangula backed Mr Odinga\u2019s claims, saying that the late Juma had confided in him two weeks ago at a restaurant in Karen that he was being targeted for assassination.<\/p>\n
Mr Musyoka on his part expressed fears for his life, saying his official police bodyguard had been withdrawn recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Detectives confess that they left the vehicle unsecured for more than 20 hours after the murder.} There was drama at Nairobi\u2019s Lee Funeral Home on Saturday when a senior police officer investigating the Thursday night murder of controversial businessman Jacob Juma admitted that it took detectives more than 20 hours to secure the vehicle he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25175"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25175"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}