Breaking News: At least 10 feared to have drowned in Makueni river
Dennis Itumbi to be charged Wednesday over fake letter
Blogger Dennis Itumbi with television journalist Jacque Maribe in a Milimani court in Nairobi on July 4, 2019. Mr Itumbi is set to be charged. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
Police sources told the Nation that by last evening, it had been decided Mr Itumbi should be charged with making a false document.
However, there was a push for a higher charge of treason for imagining the death of a sitting deputy president, said the sources.
State House digital strategist and blogger Dennis Itumbi is set to be presented in court Wednesday morning to be charged in connection with a fake letter alleging a plot to assassinate Deputy President William Ruto.
This is as the storm over the assassination claims continued to heat up, with one side of the political divide demanding that Mr Ruto should take the blame over the fake letter while the other said it would not keep quiet until it is known who wants to murder the DP.
Police sources told the Nation that by last evening, it had been decided Mr Itumbi should be charged with making a false document.
However, there was a push for a higher charge of treason for imagining the death of a sitting deputy president, said the sources.
Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) spent the whole of yesterday afternoon and part of the evening questioning Mr Itumbi at the DCI headquarters on Kiambu Road. Mr Itumbi was accompanied by his lawyer Moses Chelanga.
The detectives, who believe they have enough information to build a case against Mr Itumbi, wanted to find out if whatever he was telling them would tally with the evidence they have collected in the past two weeks, before making a decision on the charges.
“So far, they haven’t told us if there are any additional charges against my client, but if they do so, we will make it public,” Mr Chelanga told the Nation last evening.
Mr Itumbi was detained last Thursday for five days to enable police to conclude investigations. Part of the reasons the police wanted to hold him was to enable them to question 256 members of a WhatsApp group known as Tangatanga, of which the blogger is a member.
