THREE men held by police for the killing of Kabete MP George Muchai have served time at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for the offence of robbery with violence.
One man was released in 2013 after serving three years and the rest in 2014 after five years in prison.
This disclosure came after police conducted a background check on Eric Isabwa Muyera, aka ‘Chairman’, Steve Astiva Lipopo, alias Chokore, and Raphael Kimani Gachie, aka Kim Butcher.
The detectives probing the February 7 fatal shooting of Muchai, his driver Stephen Ituu Wambugu and two bodyguards, Samwel Kimathi Kairikia and Samwel Lekakey Matanta.
Only Mustafa Kimani Anyonyi, alias Musto, who carjacking victims described as something of an amateur, has not served time in prison.
Muyera, who served three years, was released in 2013, while his accomplices were released last year. Detectives found the killer hiding under his bed in Uthiru’s Area 87 after a five-day hunt.
Detectives from the Flying Squad, Special Crime Prevention Unit and the Nairobi CID office led by former Flying Squad boss Munga Nyale and the current boss Said Kiprono tracked down seven suspects.
The seven were directly and indirectly involved in the February 7 series of carjackings that culminated in the killing of the MP and his aides.
Contrary to reports that the carjackers had trailed Muchai, the suspects have told police that they had been lost along the Thika Superhighway for more than an hour-and-a-half before finally driving into town from Ngara with the intention of robbing late-night revellers in the Lang’ata area, when they chanced upon the MP’s Toyota Fortuner that had stopped at the GPO roundabout.
The suspects have told police that they went round the roundabout once and stopped in front of the MP’s vehicle before Muyera stepped out and dashed towards Fortuner.
However, as Muyera, who wore a balaclava, approached the MP’s car, he shot at an armed bodyguard who was getting out of the vehicle and the bullet ricocheted, hitting both the bodyguard and Muchai.
He then shot the other, unarmed, bodyguard dead, and then the driver, before turning back to Muchai, and firing a fifth and last bullet into the MP.
He then instructed Kimani to pick up the bodyguard’s pistol, which had fallen to the tarmac. But as Kimani, who was driving the Toyota Spacio the thugs had carjacked, left his seat to pick up the pistol, the Spacio, which was still on drive, jerked forward and rammed into a barrier at the GPO bus stop.
The carjackers then jumped back into their car with the two car-jacked women still in the boot, and drove into Koinange Street, University Way and Waiyaki Way to Kangemi, where Muyera took a taxi and dropped the G3 rifle in his Area 87 residence.
His accomplices drove the Toyota Spacio to Gitaru, where they abandoned the two women and drove on to Ndeiya, where they abandoned the car and took a taxi back to their Uthiru hideout.
Fresh details have emerged showing that the three gangsters who were also armed with a homemade gun, first carjacked a man who was waiting for his wife at a vegetable kiosk in Kangemi Market. They drove his old Nissan B13 car to Muyera’s residence in Uthiru Area 87, where they picked up the G3 rifle before proceeding towards Kikuyu for a carjacking spree.
They bundled the driver of the car into the boot of when the vehicle stalled thrice before they confronted the two women in a Toyota Spacio as they drove into their apartment compound in Wangige.
The panicked women hit their gate and neighbours raised the alarm as the victims were being bundled into the boot of their vehicle.
The carjacking was reported to Kikuyu police.
– the-star.co.ke
