When State House digital strategist Dennis Itumbi was prosecuted for the false letter alleging a plot to kill Vice President William Ruto last month, he made an unusual request.
Itumbi asked the court to order him to be detained at the police stations in Muthaiga, Gigiri or Kileleshwa “for his own safety.”
In an affidavit, he said his life would be in danger if he was sent to Kamukunji’s police cells and accused the detectives of turning a blind eye to a video recording that, he said, would prove the plot of the murder.
“Because of the material that I have, and that the investigators know that I have, and that they (the investigators) want to avoid desperately, they want to confine me to the Kamukunji police station, where the criminals are located,” said Mr. Itumbi
The preferred police cells Mr. Itumbi listed brought to the forefront concerns about why prominent people in the country appear to be detained at particular stations every time arrests are made.
A week before Itumbi’s arrest, a Milimani court had ordered police to detain Starehe Charles Njagua parliamentarian at the Kileleshwa police station for a day before he could issue his instructions on whether to release the legislator on bail . The parliamentarian had been accused of inciting violence by comments that are said to be xenophobic.