Police investigating the Shakahola deaths have told the court that they are probing a possible trade in human organs.
Martin Munene, a DCI officer attached to Financial Investigations Unit, says in a filled affidavit that a postmortem report established that some bodies exhumed at the vast forest so far do not have some organs.
“It is believed that the trade on human body organs has been well-coordinated involving several players,” he says in court documents filed on Monday.
Munene’s affidavit also sought to suspend bank accounts associated with Pastor Ezekiel Odero for a period of 30 days pending completion of investigations.
“It is necessary and desirable to issue the applicant with a warrant to investigate books of bank and mobile money services accounts so as to authorize the officer to have access to books relating to several account numbers,” the court documents read.
The court on Monday allowed the detectives to investigate the accounts over alleged money laundering.
The account numbers are from Cooperative Bank, Equity, NCBA, HFC and KCB Bank.
The police have also been allowed to investigate Odero’s seven M-Pesa lines.
The DCI states that they want the investigating officer to inspect and obtain information.
DCI wants the court to authorise it to be supplied with certified copies of the account opening documents, bank account statements, signatories of the accounts, RTGS (swift) for the period between January 14,2017, to April 30, 2023.
The order is to be served upon managers of the respondents (Cooperative Bank Limited, NCBA Bank Limited, Equity Bank Limited, KCB Bank Limited, HFC Bank Limited, Safaricom Kenya Limited) for compliance.
In the meantime, the court directed that no withdrawals be made from the accounts.
The matter will be mentioned on May 17 for further directions.
