The body of a freelance Journalist in Western Kenya, who had been
missing for days, has been found murdered and dumped in a thicket in
the area, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza.
His decapitated body was found with his hands bound behind his back, his jaw broken and some teeth missing.
Family members say he had complained of death threats just two days before he went missing on January 15.
He disappeared only two days after a report on corruption and an extortion racket run by a senior policeman was published by The Weekly Citizen, a leading tabloid.
The threats on Kisii based Francis Nyaruri were allegedly made immediately the story appeared under his pen name Mong'are Mokua.
Family members say police were uncooperative and even suggested that Nyaruri had failed to go home as he "might be busy with a woman from a neighboring town".
" When we reported the incident to the Officer Commanding Police Division – OCPD, (Lawrence Mwaura), he was reluctant to act saying that we should wait for two days or even a week because he was hooked to a woman," a relative recounted.
" The police boss had no intention of helping them in the search because he did not even circulate the missing person alert to neighboring police stations, even when I called him he kept complaining that Nyaruri had used journalism to defame him and expose what was not supposed to go to the public," Andrew Amandi, the family lawyer said.
Reached on his cell phone, Mwaura, the Kisii police boss, confirmed receiving the missing person's report from Nyaruri's family. But he dismissed reports that he was abusing his authority to incur expenditure by siphoning cash from the police division or having issued orders to the traffic cops to deliver cash collected as bribes from roads.
Mwaura said: "I am as a clean as cotton wool" but could not explain why he did not send the missing person alert to police headquarters as is the norm.
Nyanza province’s deputy provincial police officer Larry Kieng said he had instructed his officers to probe what he describes as " laxity in handling the matter".
