A teenage woman arrested at her boyfriend’s house where a police officer was shot and seriously wounded during a shootout before he died in hospital is in trouble for failure to report to authorities that the now deceased lover was an armed and dangerous criminal.
Yvonne Muthoni,19, is accused of failing to report that her boyfriend, Duncan Ndinya, was a hardcore criminal and had committed robberies.
Ms Muthoni, 19, is accused of receiving money and airtime for different mobile telecommunication companies from Ndinya and his accomplices after agreeing to conceal the offense of robbery with violence committed by her deceased lover.
The suspect is now being treated as an associate of Ndinya, who was shot dead by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) during the shootout inside his rented house in Kasarani, Nairobi, on October 8.
She was charged with compounding felonies in contravention of section 118 as read with section 36 of the Penal Code, and she is accused of committing the offense on October 8.
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) also charged Ms Muthoni with consorting with a person possessing a firearm contrary to section 89 (2) of the Penal Code.
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The suspect is accused of cohabiting with Mr Ndinya who was in possession of a Cesca pistol, serial number F9665, without reasonable excuse, which he used to kill Police Constable Andrew Nyakundi.
Ndinya also shot and seriously wounded PC Nyakundi’s three colleagues from the DCI’s elite Operational Support Unit (OSU) including Sergeant Francis Singila, PCs Joseph Karanja, and Austin Nzioki Mutie.
PC Nyakundi succumbed to injuries while undergoing treatment at the Nairobi West Hospital, where his three colleagues are still hospitalized.
The officers were following Ndinya, who was wanted for a series of robberies across the country, some of them reported in Nairobi, Kanjiando, and Embu Counties, and the DCI’s Criminal Research and Intelligence Bureau (CRIB) had located him in Kasarani before the officers raided the house.
She denied the charges before Principal Magistrate Irene Gichobi of Makadara Law Courts and pleaded for lenient bail and bond terms through lawyer Veinna Mongare who volunteered to represent her on pro bono.
Corporal Christopher Njue of Kasarani DCI offices pleaded with the court to remand Ms Muthoni at the Kasarani police station to help in investigations.
Mr Ndinya was using several firearms and only the Ceska pistol was recovered after he was killed.
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DCI believes he had multiple rental houses in Eastlands and Ms Muthoni will be of help in identifying the houses for the DCI to recover the firearms.
But Ms Mongare opposed the application and told the court that the suspect is two months pregnant and is traumatized by the fact that she witnessed the killing of her boyfriend.
The lawyer said the suspect had not been provided with the requisite food at the police station and asked the court to free the accused person on a lenient cash bail.
Ms Gichobi remanded the suspect at the Kasarani police station until October 17 and ordered a prebail report.
The magistrate said the social inquiry report is necessary to inform the court’s decision on whether Ms Muthoni is suitable to be out there owing to the issues raised and circumstances around the case.
Ms Muthoni, who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations (KCSE) last year, has been dating Ndinya since 2020 when they met at a bhang vendor’s den in Dandora estate in Nairobi during the Covid-19 lockdown.
She told DCI that they had been in an off relationship until recently when he took her to his mother’s house in Dandora and later to his new house in Kasarani, but they were not yet married.
