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DETAILS: How Police officers abducted and killed lawyer Willie Kimani

The High Court judge Lesit on Friday found police officers Fredrick Leliman, Stephen Cheburet, Sylvia Wanjiku, and their informer Peter Ngugi, guilty of the murder of lawyer Willie Kimani.

The lawyer was killed in a cold-blood execution alongside his client Josephat Mwenda & taxi driver Joseph Muiruri, in June 2016.

 

The 4 had been charged alongside police officer, Leonard Mwangi, who has been acquitted on all 3 counts of murder.

How Lawyer Willie Kimani Was Murdered…

It is a story of conspiracy, false pretence and disagreements that exposed the court to the murder of three men who were first arrested as criminals.

Police officer Geoffrey Kinyua took to the stand to read the confession of police informer Peter Ngugi who is also one of the accused in the case.

Chilling details were given to the court on how the execution of Kimani and two others were killed in the hands of the police.

The other two were Kimani’s client Josphat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri.

According to the confession, Ngugi, a former bodaboda rider was recruited as a police informer in 2011 mostly around Kabete.

Ngugi revealed how they killed Kimani and two other victims before their bodies were dumped in the Ol Donyo Sabuk river.

His job was to remove the victims from the boot of the car and hand them to the police for execution.

At 10pm, the bodaboda guy, Mwenda, was the first to be killed by strangling with a rope.

An hour later, the second victim, Muiruri, was taken to another corner and executed through strangling.

He was then put in two sacks because he was too tall to fit in one.

The third victim, Kimani, was then strangled to death and his body put in one sack alongside the bodaboda rider.

Ngugi then drove with the two bodies while Kamenchu led the way to Ol Donyo Sabuk with the other body.

“We reached the river and removed the first body and threw it in,” Ngugi’s confession noted.

He then added that they moved for a few metres and threw the other bodies.

They then drove back to Mlolongo at 4am and had food at a local bar before everyone left individually but Ngugi remained behind.

Ngugi also gave ana account of the events leading to the day of the execution starting with him trailing the victims.

In his confession, he says that in April 2016, the officer from Kabete called him to notify him that he had been transferred from Busia and was now in Mlolongo.

He added that when he went to visit him in Mlolongo and that’s when he met senior sergeant Fredrick ole Leliman, the first accused.

It was at this point that Leliman told him that he needed his help adding that he had shot at a motorcycle and due to that incident the person involved wanted him to be sacked.

Leliman confided in him that the boda boda rider was being helped by IPOA and there was a case in court and they wanted to deal with the situation.

Ngugi says that Leliman told him that the plan to kill the boda boda rider was still on and Ngugi’s job was to follow the target and report back to Leliman on his movements.

On June 23, 2016, Ngugi left his house and headed to mlolongo. On the way, he met Leliman who was with a lady and the lady was to identify the wanted boda boda man to him because he didn’t know him

Leliman dropped them at Mlolongo stage and gave them Sh2,000 to share.

“The lady showed me the target and I was able to identify him and the lady left later I don’t remember her and have never met her,” the confession reads.

Ngugi followed the boda boda guy to court and stood guard with the case taking about two hours, according to the confession.

When the case ended he came out but was with another man.

He then called Leliman who told him that the other man was also a thief.

The two entered a vehicle and Ngugi then went to Leliman’s car and found a sergeant Mwangi.

The car that was with the wanted men passed us and Leliman followed them

We caught up with them at a railway station and Mwangi removed his walkie talkie and told them they were under arrest.

They did not oppose and were put in Leliman’s car and taken to an Administration Police post.

Ngugi says in his confession that his job was also to dispose of the vehicle that had three occupants.

The plan was to drive to Meru and dispose of it there but Leliman cautioned against this saying that the taxi operated in Zimmerman so it would be dangerous to use that road.

“I also switched off 4 of the five phones that were in the car and threw them away in Lwambera after abandoning the car,” the confession states.

Ngugi said that he went back Mlolongo at around 5pm and met Leliman, Mwangi and two other officers in a bar.

Leliman then told him the three victims had been locked at Syokimau AP post and were safe there

At 7 pm while at Connections Bar, Leliman was called and informed that one of the three had managed to make a phone call to his wife about their arrest.

Ngugi says in the confession that they were all shocked at the developing events.

They drove to the post and when they arrived Leliman took the three victims and put them in his car boot while handcuffed from behind.

“From there we drive to a busy area just near the highway. In a bush, we started disagreeing on how we were to execute the three,” Ngugi says in the confession.

He added; “Another officer and I were of the opinion that we were already exposed since we had taken them to the so post and we should release them. However, Leliman insisted that they have to kill all of them.”

Ngugi adds that they argued for about three hours on what to do.

Autopsy…

Autopsy revealed how lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were brutally murdered.

The eight-hour postmortem led by Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor disclosed that the lawyer and his two associates died after being hit with blunt objects on their heads then strangled.

According to the report, Mr Kimani’s head was severally smashed with a heavier object compared to that used on the other two.

“The object they used to kill the lawyer seemed to have been heavier than the one used on the rest, the fracture was more severe,” Mr Oduor confirmed.

Mr Muiruri, on the other hand, was strangled then pounded on the head with the blunt object.

According to the postmortem, the client was severely tortured in comparison to the other two. Results showed he had intense bleeding in the chest, neck and a fracture on the head.

The autopsy was conducted at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in the presence of Dr Andrew Gachie who represented the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).

Following the heinous killings, the LSK, human rights activists, taxi and bodaboda operators held nationwide protests demanding justice for the colleagues who were killed.

Justice finally…

The victims’ families and Kenyans are happy that justice is finally being served.

The police officers Fredrick Leliman, Stephen Cheburet, Sylvia Wanjiku, and their informer Peter Ngugi have been found guilty of the brutal murder.

The convicts have been taken to respective prisons as they await sentencing.

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