Muthaiga OCS interdicted over Dennis Itumbi photos

A decision to allow State House digital director Dennis Itumbi’s friends  to hold a night vigil at Muthaiga Police Station on Wednesday has come to haunt the station’s boss, who was interdicted Friday.

This happened as it emerged that detectives are pursuing five more people who are said to have been at a meeting in a restaurant near City Hall in Nairobi’s CBD where plans to write the fake letter alleging a plot to assassinate the deputy president were mooted.

On Friday, the detectives took away CCTV footage from the restaurant and are studying it for crucial leads.

This is after one of the people whom phone conversations have determined was in the meeting spilled the beans upon being questioned by detectives.

Detectives are planning to summon some members of a WhatsApp group known as Tangatanga starting Monday as they seek to understand the origin of the fake letter.

By last night, a good number of members of the 256-strong chat group that include politicians and propagandists who support the deputy president had quit in fear of getting arrested.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), however, already has a complete list of the members and has managed to get a good chunk of the conversations in the group. It is these conversations that will inform the basis of how the members will be questioned.

But on Wednesday and in their usual fashion, Mr Itumbi’s friends thronged the Muthaiga Police Station to offer him support like he has always done for some of them whenever they find themselves in legal trouble.

Abandoned by the Office of the Deputy President, which immediately claimed after his arrest that the blogger does not work for them, Mr Itumbi has been largely relying on his political friends for moral support.

However, on Wednesday night, the support went too far after the entourage that visited him managed to get him out of his cell and even took pictures with him.

One particular picture showed the entourage in an office while the other showed them seated on a bench in a corridor at the police station. The group, which spent the entire evening cracking jokes, is said to have left the station after midnight.

In one of the photos making rounds on social media, Mr Itumbi is seen with television journalist Jacque Maribe, politician Josiah Murigu and Itumbi's brother David Itumbi. The photos which have been largely circulated online by Mr Itumbi’s circle of friends even ended up in a local newspaper.

This seems to have not gone down well with the top hierarchy within the police service and something had to be done. Yesterday, Muthaiga Police OCS Alphonce Kemengua was interdicted as the National Police Service worked to get to the root of the matter.

According to Police Standing Orders, suspects are supposed to be confined to their cells at all times unless they are meeting their lawyers or family and with the permission of the OCS.

Mr Itumbi, who is the State House digital director, was detained for five more days by a Nairobi court Thursday to allow police complete investigation into a fake letter that claimed there was a plot to assassinate Mr Ruto.

Before the order to detain him was issued at the Milimani Law Courts, Mr Itumbi pleaded with the court not to detain him at the Kamukunji Police Station as sought by the prosecution.

He further told the magistrate that he had a video of the meeting held at Hotel La Mada whose agenda was allegedly to kill the DP.

Meanwhile, Mr Ruto’s allies continued with their tirade expressing displeasure on the direction the investigations surrounding the alleged murder plot against the DP was taking.