Jennifer Wambua murder: Key suspects detained 10 more days

 

A court has allowed police to detain key suspects in the murder of a senior National Land Commission (NLC) official for 10 more days for conclusion of the probe.

Benjamin Saitoti Patel and David Sempuan have been linked to Jennifer Wambua’s murder and have been in police custody since early this month.

On April 9, the prosecution team, made up of the Director of Public Prosecution and the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI), sought to detain Mr Saitoti and Mr Sempuan for 14 days. The request was granted.

On Friday, the investigating officers from the DCI told the court that they needed more time to conclude the investigations as the 14 days were insufficient.

The officers said more persons of interest in the case were still at large and that they needed more time to mine phone data records from the suspects and make more arrests.

When the two suspects appeared before Kiambu Chief Magistrate Patricia Gichohi on April 9, they did not protest against the ruling for their detention.

On Friday, the magistrate allowed police to transfer them from Muthaiga Police Station, where they had been held, to Gigiri Police Station, until May 3 when they will return to court.

What happened

Until her death, Wambua was a State witness scheduled for cross examination in a Sh122.3 million  theft case against former Principal Secretary and current Lugari MP Ayub Savula , his two wives and 27 others.

The suspects in the theft  had  jointly been charged with conspiring to commit a felony - stealing Sh122,335,500 from the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology. They allegedly committed the offence between July 1, 2015 and August 30, 2018 at the State Department for Broadcasting and Telecommunications within Nairobi County.

Wambua's body was found dumped in a thicket in Ngong Forest, Kajiado, a few days after she was reported missing on March 12 by her husband Joseph Komu, an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture.

A  postmortem by Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor revealed she was strangled.

“The oesophagus had collapsed, showing she was strangled by hand,” the report said

Wambua's case was first taken up by the DCI the day she was reported missing. It was then transferred to the DCI's Homicide Unit headed by Mr Martin Nyuguto a day after her body was found.   BY DAILY NATION