Governor seized over Lamu raids

Lamu governor Issa Timamy was Wednesday arrested shortly after recording a statement on the Mpeketoni massacre.

Mr Timamy was summoned to Lamu while he was at State House, Nairobi, where he was meeting President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“He arrived at around 2pm at Manda Airstrip and went straight to the local CID offices to record the statement before crossing to Mokowe by boat,” said a police source on condition of anonymity.
A senior police officer told the Nation last evening that Mr Timamy was transferred to Malindi and later Mombasa.

“They told him that he will be taken to Mokowe police station to record further statement but a pick-up which transported him never stopped and instead drove towards the Lamu-Malindi Road,” said one of Mr Timamy’s relatives who asked not to be identified.

Mr Timamy is the only United Democratic Front (UDF) governor in the Coast region.

Sources said he was taken to Mombasa by detectives from the directorate of criminal investigations and special crime prevention unit. The team from Nairobi was deployed to Lamu immediately after the Mpeketoni attacks which claimed 60 lives and led to serious destruction of property two weeks ago.

In a subsequent attack on Monday, another five people were killed in cold blood.

Mr Timamy was among local leaders who were coordinating humanitarian assistance to hundreds of displaced families from Mpeketoni and its environs in the wake of the killings.

Camps for internally displaced persons have sprung up in Lamu County, while many schools have been deserted as children and their parents troop to the camps for fear of attacks by marauding killers.

The government’s efforts to have some of the temporary settlements closed for people to go back to their farms suffered a blow after the fresh attack in Witu.

Teachers who spoke to the Nation yesterday said they had no one to teach as parents had taken off with their children.

Reported by Galgalo Bocha, Mazera Ndurya and Kalume Kazungu