A Nairobi court on Monday heard that Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho was the complainant in a case in which digital strategist Dennis Itumbi is accused of forging a Deputy President William Ruto assassination letter.
Taking the stand was the investigating officer, Yvonne Anyango who told Milimani chief magistrate Martha Mutuku that the PS’s name was dropped from the case by the DCI.
Itumbi’s lawyer Katwa Kigen sought to find out why Kibicho’s name was not on the list of witnesses. Anyango on her part said, “Your honour the complainant was PS Kibicho but it was decided that his name be dropped because we did not find it necessary.”
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The corporal police further confirmed that the co-accused person Samuel Gateri was their witness but was arrested after commenting on the matter.
On September 2, 2019, DCI denounced Gateri as a state witness and instead said he was a suspect under investigation.
“We wish to clarify that contrary to insinuation by one Samwel Gateri that he’s a state witness in respect to criminal case against one @OleItumbi is false & misleading,” DCI tweeted.
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Gateri had filed an application seeking to withdraw from the case. He said that DCI officers threatened him into “fixing” DP Ruto.
Investigating officer Anyango was also asked why she asked the court to detain Itumbi for 14 days yet extracting data from the accused’s phone only took six days.
“From the documents we have in court, the process of extracting data only took six minutes but as the investigating officer, you asked for 14 days, explain why,” Kigen asked.
She said that forensics experts noted that the exercise would take 14 days.
Asked whether she interviewed all the 256 members of the Tanga Tanga WhatsApp group, Anyango averred that she only questioned the four admins.
Another witness in the case, also a Tanga Tanga WhatsApp admin, Lilian Wamaitha, said the letter had been circulating in another group, Kiambu Forum.
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Itumbi was in July charged with authoring a fake DP Ruto assassination letter and implicating a Cabinet Secretary.
The charge sheet reads that on June 20, 2019, at an unknown place within the Republic of Kenya, Dennis Njue Itumbi made a document dated May 30, 2019, purporting to be a genuine one made by a cabinet secretary, a fact he knew to be false.
He was also charged with reprogramming his phone.
The case will continue on January 28 (Tuesday).
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