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Yes, Kenyan criminal investigations boss said police officer was murdered

A Facebook post flagged as possibly false includes a video captioned: “DCI boss, Kinoti, says Sergeant Kipyegon Kenei was murdered in cold blood.”

The video, shared on the Facebook page of radio station Capital FM Kenya on 8 March 2020, shows head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, George Kinoti, speaking. 

He says that his office has finished the first phase of the investigation into the death of Sgt Kipyegon Kenei and concluded he did not die by suicide.

Kenei, a security officer at deputy president William Ruto’s office in the capital Nairobi, was found dead on 20 February at his home.

Local media reported that Kenei was on duty the day former sports cabinet secretary, Rashid Echesa, who is implicated in a fake KSh39 billion military equipment tender, visited the deputy president’s office.

“We have finished the first phase of our investigation ... it was not actually suicide but it was cold murder which was well-executed, stage-managed, but unfortunately our experts here are smarter than the killers,” Kinoti says in the video. 



‘Victim was murdered’


The video is real and appears unaltered. The director of criminal investigations held a press conference on 5 March where he said the police sergeant was murdered and did not die by suicide, though it had been made to look that way.

The press conference was covered by various local media organisations.

Video clips of Kinoti’s statement were also shared by Daily Nation and Kenya Television Network, among others. – Dancan Bwire




 

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