Kenya police offer Sh500,000 for park bombers

Police on Tuesday offered half-a-million shillings reward for information leading to the arrest of people behind Sunday’s grenade attack at Uhuru Park.

However, even as he appealed for the public’s help, Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said no one had been arrested — 48 hours after investigations began.

“Any person with information regarding the incident is requested to report to the nearest police station or administrative officer. A reward of Sh500,000 will be given for information leading to the arrest of the authors of this crime,” Mr Iteere said.

Three explosions said to have been caused by grenades ripped through the park at the rally, which had been billed as a religious crusade but was also used to campaign against the proposed constitution.

Six people were killed and 104 wounded in the blasts. The police boss said that investigations were focusing on identifying the nature of the explosive and the persons responsible.

“We have established, with a hundred per cent certainty, that a grenade was used. We now want to find out the model and the country it was manufactured, which might lead us to the suspects,” Mr Iteere said.

A team of police officers from the Bomb Disposal Forensic Unit, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, the Criminal Intelligence Unit, and the Nairobi Area Police Command had been formed to investigate the blast.

Police headquarters has set up four reporting centres to receive any information related to the blast.

The centres are at the CID headquarters on Kiambu Road, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit on Hospital Road, the Kilimani district criminal investigation officer and his Central counterpart.

The investigators can also be reached on hotline number 0729 999 988 or email [email protected].

Asked what police will do about the announcement by the clergy that they intend to hold more crusades and rallies at Uhuru Park, Mr Iteere said they were treating the attack as an isolated case that will not interrupt Kenyans’ lives.

Meanwhile, detectives assigned to the case have been visiting victims at the Kenyatta National Hospital and other health institutions to interview them.

At the same time, the bodies of the six people who died during the blast have not been released to their families because the detectives are trying to trace their movements. They are also checking their mobile phone data.

At the City Mortuary, pathologists carried out a postmortem on Mr S.K. Waruinge’s body, which was found in a vehicle at Uhuru Park 12 hours after the blast.

The experts had hoped to find bullet heads in the body, as they had speculated that the man may have died after being shot, going by physical examination of a wound on his neck.

No bullets were found and an X-ray of the body was scheduled for today to determine if a bullet had passed through it.