Four police officers have been placed under arrest after wanted murder suspect Kelvin Kinyanjui Kang’ethe broke free from custody while they were on duty at the Muthaiga Police Station.
At a press conference on Friday, Nairobi Police Chief Adamson Bungei announced that two more officers in charge of the four officers in question had been sent to different duty stations as part of internal disciplinary actions.
Bungei further disclosed that John Ndegwa Maina, Kang’ethe’s attorney, is still being held by the police. Shortly after Kang’ethe’s escape on Wednesday, February 7, at approximately 530 p.m., Maina was taken into custody at Muthaiga Police Station.
Following the incident, questions were raised over the legitimacy of his status as Kang’ethe’s lawyer. However, on Friday, Bungei revealed that initial investigations had confirmed the legitimacy of his identity as the suspect’s genuine legal lawyer.
Prior to his escape, Maina is said to have gone to Kang’ethe four times while acting as his lawyer.
Kang’ethe is charged with the murder of a 31-year-old Whitman, Massachusetts resident who was born in Kenya. Her body was found in November of last year inside a car at Boston’s Logan Airport.
Kang’ethe was brought before the court on a miscellaneous motion after his arrest in Nairobi, where investigators were given permission to hold him for 30 days while their investigations were ongoing.
When the court detained him in the Muthaiga police station, it saw that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ (ODPP) appeal regarding the nature of the offense had received no opposition.
The DPP also informed the court that a number of applications needed to be filed, one of which was for his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for murder.
