A 23-year-old bodaboda rider who allegedly dropped his accomplices at the scene of the fatal shooting of a Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officer in Mihang’o, Njiru Sub-County is facing robbery with violence charges.
Mr Alex Njenga has been charged with robbing and wounding Ms Hellen Kemunto during the robbery that happened around 9pm on August 8, 2023.
Ms Kemunto is the wife of the late Police Constable David Mayaka of Makadara DCI who was shot dead during the incident.
Mr Njenga, jointly with others, is accused of robbing Ms Kemunto of a phone valued at Sh32,000 and fatally injuring her husband during the robbery while armed with a CZ pistol of serial number B626735.
When he was arraigned before Senior Principal Magistrate Mary Njagi of the Makadara Law Courts, the accused denied the charges, claiming he was ordered by two gangsters at gunpoint to ferry them to the crime scene.
The firearm used in the robbery was recovered from Mr Njenga’s accomplice John Kamau alias Faruk who shot and wounded a DCI officer during a fierce shootout at his hideout in Kayole, Nairobi where he was killed on August 22.
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Mr Njenga was riding the motorcycle captured on CCTV making a U-turn to drop two of his accomplices a few meters from where Mayaka had parked his car to change a flat tyre, and speeding off with them after they shot and robbed the officer and his wife.
The suspect, however, told Ms Njagi that he knew the two had earlier killed a boda boda rider who had declined to ferry them, less than two months before they contacted him to carry them and he could not decline their request.
But the DCI have questioned why the accused did not take off after the two alighted from his motorbike to rob Mayaka and his wife, and why he later went into hiding leaving the motorbike in Nairobi.
Mr Njenga had retreated to his grandmother’s home in Ndeiya in Kiambu County where he was traced and arrested on August 15, 2023. He had left the motorbike – KMGJ 350U – at his rented house in Twiga Area in Njiru before going into hiding.
During investigations, Mr Njenga told DCI officers that he was called by one of the two men around 8pm and asked to pick him in Kayole. After picking the first suspect, they proceeded to a bar in the area where they picked the other suspect.
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He told the detectives that the two robbed a woman of her mobile phone and shot on the ground to scare her along the way before they pounced on Mayaka and his wife.
The suspect revealed that after shooting the two and robbing Ms Kemunto, he drove the two robbers to a petrol station in Umoja where one of the suspects called a man who bought the two mobile phones. Thereafter, they proceeded to Soweto area where he dropped them and he was paid Sh3,000 for the ride.
He claims that two days, later he saw himself and the two accomplices on the news. It is then that he went into hiding.
While in custody, Mr Njenga was escorted to City Mortuary where he identified the body of Faruk and told the detectives that he was one of the two men he carried during the robbery.
Prosecution counsel Moraa Rongito opposed bail and bond terms for the suspect and told the court that tracing Mr Njenga had proved difficult for the DCI, adding that the suspect is a member of dangerous armed gang that is being trailed by the DCI.
The accused was remanded until September 20, 2023 when a pre-bail report will be tabled by the probation department before setting bail and bond terms. Hearing of the case commences on January 25, 2024.
