Bomet Senator Lang'at narrates 20-hour ordeal with police

 

Bomet Senator Christopher Langat's problem with detectives started on Saturday after he ignored summons to record a statement over alleged incitement, the Star has established.

Langat did not respond to five calls and a text message from Bomet county criminal investigations officer Johnstone Kola. This forced the officer to alert Nairobi so that a search can be launched for his arrest.

For the better part of Sunday, Langat was a free man. However, it dawned on him that he was a wanted man at 9.30pm when a contingent of officers from Embakasi Police Station arrived outside his Nyayo estate house.

The officers, led by their OCS, had been tasked with tracking and monitoring his movements. They were to arrest and hand him over to their Bomet colleagues.

Langat seemed not to know why he was being sought for he was that night heard on a video recording asking the officers from the window of his house why they wanted him at night yet he had been indoors all day-long.

“Sasa munanipeleka usiku wapi jameni? Siku mzima nilikuwa hapa pekee yangu si mungekuja mchana munipeleke penye mnataka kuliko kukuja usiku na kusema tunakutaka. Surely, be honest, be human. What is all this drama? What is it jameni?” Langat pleaded.

He did not open for the officers until Monday morning when his lawyer, Nelson Havi, arrived and he surrendered to the officers.

He was briefly taken Embakasi Police Station in a Subaru Forester KCD 978B and onwards to Nairobi Area where he was told he was being taken to Bomet to record a statement.

The journey to Bomet with two officers and Havi started at noon. The lawyer recalled his client's 20-hour captivity to the Star. They did not stop anywhere even for lunch.

“We never ate lunch or even stopped to buy anything along the way from Nairobi to Bomet…we also never conversed with the officers about the charge the senator was facing,” he said.

He added, “Along the Narok highway, past Mai Mahiu town, the officers changed the car’s number plate.”

After the three-hour 200-kilometre drive, they arrived at Bomet Police Station in the same black Subaru, now with KCK 686D registration number.

At the station, Langat was whisked to the office of the CCIO and questioned. After about 30 minutes, he was a free man.

However, Kola said he will be called back if need be as investigations were ongoing.

The senator is alleged to have ferried about 200 Kipsigis youth to River Amalo on August 12. Police say he administered oaths to the youths to fight the Maasais in Olposimoru, Narok.

Langat dismisses the accusation as untrue "since I was in the Senate on the particular day”.