A police informer shocked a trial court on Thursday when he admitted playing a major role in the 2016 brutal murder of lawyer Willie Kimani.
In a chilling account, Peter Ngugi described how more than five Mlolongo police officers trailed, waylaid and abducted their victims. They drank alcohol a lot of alcohol after committing the murders.
The officers Ngugi mentioned are still serving and two of them were prosecution witnesses in the case.
Also adversely mentioned by Ngugi is AP officer Fredrick Leliman who fuelled two vehicles the prosecution alleges transported the bodies to Oldonyo Sabuk where they were dumped in Athi River.
Ngugi gave details of all the crime scenes and revealed how, after telling on Willie, he found them when they had just been blocked at the spot they were kidnapped.
“I found their vehicle had been parked by the roadside. I was told to take the vehicle to Limuru. They told me another police officer would come to pick the vehicle and radios and I did so,” Ngugi said
Ngugi said he was introduced to the Spiv officers by former Mlolongo OCS Stephen Lelei a week before the murders.
At one point, Willie’s elderly father Paul Kinuthia broke down upon hearing how his son was brutally murdered.
Image: ENOS TECHE
On June 23, officer Wilson Kamau from Special Investigations called Ngugi early in the morning and asked him to go to Mlolongo because he wanted him to spy on a certain thief.
That morning he met two other officers identified as Kamenju and Waingo in Mlolongo on his way to court to spy on Willie.
Kamenju and Kamau gave him instructions on how to identify Willie and Josephat in court.
Ngugi admitted that he kept relaying the information as directed by the officers.
When Willie and Josephat left, he was directed to wait for another police officer who picked him and took him to where the kidnapping occurred.
“I met Kamau, Kamenju and Mwaniki and they gave me instructions on how I would dispose of the vehicle that was used by those two people (Willie and Josephat),” he said.
Image: ENIS TECHE
After he disposed of the vehicle at Kamirithu, Limuru, Ngugi said he boarded a matatu and went back to Mlolongo. He again met Kamau, Kamenju, Mwaniki and other officers he identified as Waweru and Brown.
He told Justice Jessie Lessit that they met at a bar and ordered beer and meat. While at the bar, Ngugi told court that another officer came running and informed the officers that there were people looking for the persons who had been taken in the morning.
Ngugi claimed that the officers then immediately left.
At about 8pm, Ngugi said he was called by Kamau and instructed on how he would find them at a deserted field.
When he got to the field, he met all the five officers there and they stayed there for some time before they embarked on a journey to a river past Thika town.
He said before they left Leliman, whom he referred to as ‘senior’, allegedly gave them money to fuel the two vehicles they were using.
“I was driving the car that had Kamenju and Brown. Kamau Mwaniki and Waweru were in the second car,” he said.
Ngugi then carefully went ahead and narrated how they drove past Thika town to a river where they dumped things wrapped in gunny bags that he referred as ‘mizigo mirefu’ (long luggage).
“I was told to park my car besides the river where they opened the boot and removed the bags and threw them into the river. The other vehicle also removed other bags and threw them to the river,” Ngugi said.
Image: ANNETTE WAMBULWA
He said they drove back to Mlolongo and went to a club where he ordered a warm and cold Guinness. Shortly after, Leliman joined him and the others and said each of them be given an additional five beers.
Ngugi said he was left alone in the club where he blacked out at some point and when he woke up at 10am the next morning he continued drinking until 3pm.
He left for a while to pick a pair of shoes and again met officer Kamau at Mlolongo police station.
They then headed to another bar at Mulleys Supermarket where he drank till morning again.
Asked by his lawyer why he decided to tell it all now, Ngugi said he could not have mentioned the Spiv officers then because they were still at large.
“I did not apply for bail because the people I did all those things with were outside and they did not know what I would tell the court,” he said
Further, the accused who had initially before his arrest given a confession detailing how Willie and the others were strangled and their bodies dumped, explained that he fired his lawyer two years ago because she was also afraid of being killed.
Ngugi claimed that the lawyer who represented him before the court assigned his current lawyer used to caution him on what to say and she didn’t believe his version of the events of June 23.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING’A
Ngugi had in February 2019 vehemently denied under oath any involvement in the June 2016 killings that sent shockwaves across the country, forcing the LSK to conduct countrywide demonstrations.
In his earlier confession to police, Ngugi had given specific details of how the AP officer Leonard Mwangi and Leliman, alongside Kamenju, killed the three men.
He claimed it was Mwangi who frogmarched the victims and handed them over to Kamenju and Leliman who then strangled them.
Mwangi then took the lifeless bodies back to the boot.
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