Speaking to Citizen TV’s Monday Report, Owino said the specifics of the case against Mukunji would only be made public once the MP has been arrested and his statement recorded.
“The fact that you ought to know from me is that he’s being pursued. Other details, you wait until after he has been arrested, because the investigating officers may not be able to divulge all the information required,” Owino said.
The spokesperson, who also identified himself as a trained criminal investigator, said it was standard investigative procedure to withhold case details until a suspect has been apprehended.
Pressed on a separate incident in Garissa County over the weekend, where a rally attended by opposition leaders Kalonzo Musyoka, Justin Muturi and Eugene Wamalwa was disrupted, Owino said he was aware of the incident and maintained that police were investigating.
He, however, drew a distinction between the Garissa disruption and the violence witnessed in Embu, where a political meeting attended by Deputy President Kithure Kindiki was attacked, vehicles were torched and lives were lost.
Owino rejected suggestions that the government had been selective in how it applies the law against leaders allied to the opposition versus those aligned with the ruling coalition, pointing to the case of Mukurwe-ini MP John Kaguchia, who was arrested after ignoring a police summons.
He also weighed in on remarks made by Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma, which he described as inflammatory, saying he expected to see charges eventually filed against him.
“I would call it primitive, backward, and not expected of a lawmaker,” Owino said of Kaluma’s remarks, adding that the matter is currently before the Director of Public Prosecutions following investigations by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC).
Owino maintained that whether an individual is eventually charged, whether over the Embu violence, the Garissa disruption, or Kaluma’s remarks, would ultimately determine whether the law had been applied fairly.
“If at the end of the day nobody is charged on the Homa Bay issue, especially after this kind of incitement, then you would call it selective,” Owino said, adding that political violence must end regardless of which side of the political divide it originates from.
