How President Uhuru Kenyatta's stolen BMW was found
President Kibaki's motorcade arrives at the Kencom bus stage for the unveiling of the Tom Mboya Statue in 2011. The BMW that was stolen last week was part of the presidential escort fleet. FILE PHOTO | KEVIN SABUNI |
What you need to know:
- The vehicle was stolen on Wednesday last week after an armed gang carjacked the driver. Inspector David Machui was later released but the gang drove off with the vehicle.
- After the arrest, Flying Squad detectives released the girlfriend without any charge.
- Bungoma CID boss Peter Mabeya said that two suspects were arrested in connection with the incident. One of them has already appeared in a Nakuru court.
Ugandan police have recovered President Uhuru Kenyatta’s stolen escort car after the suspect’s girlfriend lured him into a trap at Wandegeya, a Kampala suburb near Makerere University.
Police sources Wednesday said the suspect, who was arrested on Tuesday night while driving the stolen BMW, is a Ugandan. However, his name was not revealed.
The vehicle had been vandalised, according to another police source, who also preferred anonymity because he was reluctant to be identified commenting on an issue involving another country.
RECOVERY CONFIRMED
Mr Asan Kasingye, the director of Interpol in Uganda, confirmed the recovery of the car but declined to divulge details about the persons arrested.
“Our counterparts informed us that their President’s car that was stolen at gunpoint was heading to Uganda. So we started to monitor and we recovered it and we have sent it back to Kenya,” Mr Kasingye said.
The vehicle was stolen on Wednesday last week after an armed gang carjacked the driver. Inspector David Machui was later released but the gang drove off with the vehicle.
The car’s tracking system is said to have been removed in a garage in Kenya. The BMW was last tracked in Bungoma on Sunday evening.
Kenyan detectives arrested Mr Aggrey Ochieng, a mechanic, at a garage where the car was worked on.
It is alleged that an informer provided the telephone contacts of the suspects which they shared with Ugandan police on Monday.
SUSPECT'S GIRLFRIEND
Kenyan authorities also alerted their Ugandan counterparts through a senior Ugandan police officer based in Nairobi, who coordinated with his colleagues in Kampala.
Flying Squad operatives and Integrated Highway Patrol officers were deployed at border points and bridges between Kenya and Kampala but they failed to track the car.
On Tuesday, Ugandan security officers obtained the contacts of the suspect’s girlfriend, who allegedly denied any connection with him.
“Flying Squad operatives pressed her to cooperate with the police and she finally gave in. So she telephoned the suspect and they had a chat as detectives listened in. She was told to ask for a meeting with him which the suspect accepted,” a source said.
When the suspect reached Kampala, he drove to Wandegeya and met the girlfriend. It was then that detectives arrested him.
DETAILS WITHHELD
He did not resist arrest. “He took our officers to the car. They searched it and found out that it had the exact match with the initials of the one they were looking for,” the source said.
After the arrest, Flying Squad detectives released the girlfriend without any charge.
The details of what he told Uganda officials in his statement are still held because they are still looking for more suspects.
It was not clear whether the suspect would be prosecuted in Uganda or he would be extradited to Kenya where the offence was committed.
Earlier, reports said Interpol had joined efforts to have the stolen vehicle returned to Kenya. The head of its central bureau in Nairobi, Mr Vitalis Okumu, said they contacted their counterparts in Kampala after the BMW, which is part of the presidential fleet, was abandoned in Tororo, six days after being stolen at gunpoint.
VEHICLE ALTERED
The BMW735 series vehicle was stolen on August 28 as Mr Machui drove into his home compound in Utawala, Nairobi.
Bungoma CID boss Peter Mabeya said that two suspects were arrested in connection with the incident. One of them has already appeared in a Nakuru court.
Mr Ochieng was being held at the Nakuru Central Police Station after an application by prosecutor Cosmas Ikunywa, who told senior principal magistrate John Mwaniki that the suspect had offered to give them information on the theft of the vehicle.
Police sources claimed that the stolen car underwent alterations at Mr Ochieng’s garage before it was driven towards the Uganda border.
Police said President Kenyatta’s driver dropped him off at the airport and drove back to State House in Nairobi before he drove to his house. According to the police, Mr Machui was attacked by four men armed with two AK-47 rifles and two pistols.
DRIVER ABANDONED NAKED
They forced him into the back seat and drove for six hours while questioning him. They later abandoned him naked a few metres from the Administration Police Training College in Embakasi.
According to police, the gunmen asked the officer whether the car belonged to him but he informed them it belonged to the Judiciary. The gunmen talked very little and as they drove around the city, they did not commit any robbery.
Mr Machui said that one of the attackers was masked and for the period he was held in the car, the masked man never uttered even a single word. Detectives suspect that he probably knew the victim.
The dark blue BMW, whose registration number was given as GK A374E, was bought in 2000 and belonged to the Kenya Police Service’s Presidential Escort Unit. It had a civilian number plate, KAW 479Y, when it was stolen.
----------
Correction, September 5, 2014
An earlier version of the story of this story indicated the vehicle KAY 472Y (on the far right of the photo) to have been the vehicle that was stolen in Ruai. A statement by State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu, in fact, indicated the stolen vehicle as having registration KAY 479Y, the number that was reported at Ruai Police Station.
