On Friday, February 3, at 1 pm, two university students went to the Magharib Building near T- Mall on Langata Road in Nairobi for lunch.
Alvin Kyalo, a second-year student at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and Robert Mutugi, a first-year student at Daystar University, were accosted at the entrance by three men in civilian clothes.
The men introduced themselves as police officers and told the students that they were under arrest.
The young men were stunned and asked what their crime was. The policemen claimed they were in possession of bhang.
They were bundled into two cars — a white Toyota Vitz registration number KCT 826Q and a silver Toyota Avensis registration number KBP 370G. In the latter vehicle were three occupants, one dressed in full combat wear and the other two in civilian clothes.
The students were held hostage for more than four hours as their captors demanded Sh150, 000 to release them. They were forced to call their parents and ask for the money.
Robert was driven to an M-Pesa agent near the Langata Deputy County Commissioner’s office where he was forced to withdraw Sh20,000 that his parent had sent to him. He was freed.
Alvin was robbed of Sh500 and ordered to call his mother who works in the city centre. She rushed to T-Mall to the vehicle where her son was held captive.
According to a police report, the officers told her she had to part with Sh100, 000 to secure her son’s release. She said she didn’t have that kind of money and Alvin’s captors told her to get into the car to negotiate. She refused.
Instead, she told the abductors that she would go to T-mall to withdraw the little she had. On her way to the mall, she bumped into police officers on patrol and reported the incident.
The officers from Nyayo Police Post ambushed the kidnappers, arrested two suspects and rescued Alvin. The four suspects who were in the other car fled.
One of the students complained that he had been assaulted by the suspects, according to a police report.
The suspects were escorted to Langata Police Station where they were identified as police constables Victor Mulati Khisa and John Tula Odhiambo.
Their accomplice Timothy Otieno was later arrested within Langata. All are based at the K9 Unit headquarters in Lang’ata.
Also recovered were a KDF smoke jacket, a reflector jacket and a police walkie-talkie. The Toyota Vitz was also impounded.
The suspects were arraigned at the chief magistrate’s court in Kibera on Monday.
“After recording statements from the students, it was established that the officers were working in cahoots with a security guard at Magharibi Building, who was the one who allegedly discovered the narcotics and called the officers,” documents filed in court read in part.
The court allowed the police to detain the four suspects — Khisa, Odhiambo, Otieno and James Anangwe — for seven days.
Mr Johnson Wanjohi, an investigator attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Lang’ata, had asked the court to sanction their detention for 14 days to enable the conclusion of investigations into a robbery with violence charges.
