A mechanic has been sentenced to death for stealing a vehicle from President Uhuru Kenyatta’s motorcade.
The technician was given the heavy penalty by Milimani Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi because his activities were considered a matter of national security.
The defendant was charged with robbing a BMW 735 automobile type valued at Ksh1.2 million from a Chief Inspector of Police, David Machui, together with four others.
The event occurred on August 26, 2014, in Utawala, Nairobi, when a senior police officer was robbed at gunpoint in what was described as a carjacking.
According to the charge sheet produced in court, the mechanic was armed with an AK-47 rifle and another pistol at the time of the incident.
The second count stated that the suspect intended to sell the car despite the fact that it had been taken illegally from the government.
After it was discovered that two of the other accused men had dead, the Judge had no choice but to acquit them, the mechanic was prosecuted alone.
After being freed on bond in 2017, one of the conspirators allegedly died under mysterious circumstances.
The second co-accused was discovered dead in Uganda, according to police accounts, of natural causes.
Due to a lack of evidence linking them to the theft of the vehicle, two additional car sellers were acquitted.
The case drew worldwide attention, raising concerns about the situation of national security. Ugandan law enforcement officials were had to intervene.
According to reports at the time, the technician was enticed into a trap near Makerere University in Wandegeya, a low-income Kampala neighbourhood. The vehicle was retrieved after he was apprehended by a specialized police team.
Asan Kasingye, the Ugandan director of Interpol, announced the retrieval.
“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,” Kasingye stated.
After disabling the monitoring equipment in a Nairobi garage, the mechanic allegedly drove one of the most tracked vehicles from Nairobi to Kampala.
