The inquest into the death of 29 year old protester Rex Masai continued on Monday, with two key witnesses Safaricom PLC’s law enforcement liaison officer and a senior firearms examiner testifying.
Safaricom’s Senior Manager for the Law Enforcement Liaison Office Zachary Kirogoi Mburu, told the court that the company had received two separate court orders compelling it to extract call data records and geographical locations of specific mobile numbers between 18 and 20 June 2024.
“A request comes in the form of a court order, and once it is confirmed, it is forwarded to our office where we extract information as contained in the order,” Mburu testified.
He revealed that the data placed Isaiah Murangiri Duba’s number within the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) during the critical hours on the evening of June 20, 2024.
Murangiri is one of the witnesses in Rex Masai’s shooting inquest.
“At around 7:45 pm on June 20, the number registered under Isaiah Murangiri was serviced by the Kencom site, meaning the subscriber was around Kencom area at that time,” Mburu told the court.
He explained that the sites record the activity of mobile phones but provide only approximate locations.
When asked about the distance required for a subscriber to be captured by a Safaricom site, Mburu explained that a subscriber must be within the coverage radius and the site that is available will pick it.
He told senior principal magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo that Murangiri may not have moved, but Kencom still captured his signal
“In the CBD, sites are many and the coverage radius is quite short because it is densely populated. In sparsely populated areas, the radius can go up to five kilometres,” he clarified under cross-examination.
The call data also showed that another number, registered to Benson Thiro Kamau, was serviced by towers at KBC, Etorn Ridgeways, and Kiambu West during the same evening.
Separately, Senior Superintendent Alex Mdindi Mwandawiro, a forensic ballistics expert from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), testified on the bullet fragment submitted for examination
He told the court that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) had handed over a damaged fired bullet jacket on July 1, 2024, for analysis.
“My examination showed that the bullet jacket weighed 0.83 grams. It was part of a 5.56 by 45 mm calibre rifle bullet. The fragment bore right-hand twist engravings and large engraved areas, which could only come from a rifle barrel,” Mwandawiro explained.
He ruled out the pistols submitted for testing by DCI Central Police Station including a Ceska, Jericho, and CZ85B pistol saying they were of a different calibre.
“The three pistols are 9x19mm calibre and could not have fired the exhibit. The bullet was consistent with rifles such as the American AR-15, the Israeli Galil, the Russian AK-01, or Kenya’s locally produced Chalbi rifle,” he said.
Mwandawiro, however, admitted that his findings were inconclusive, since no rifles capable of firing a 5.56mm round were presented for comparison.
“What I can state with certainty is that the bullet jacket handed to me by IPOA did not pass through the barrel of the three pistols submitted. The bullet must have come from live ammunition fired by a rifle,” he said.
He went on to explain that pistols like the Ceska have an effective range of 50–70 metres, while rifles like the Chalbi can reach up to 1,000 metres, depending on terrain, wind, and other conditions.
“An effective range of a sesca is Within 50-70 metres considering other factors like temperature , windage, humidity, landscape to do with topography because if you fired from a flat position you will cover large ground,” court was told.
“Effective use of the firearms is also dependent on the user.”
Mwandawiro told the court that not all the firearms listed for testing were submitted to him.
“I was supposed to receive four firearms for comparative analysis, but only three were submitted,” court heard.
“The pistols I mentioned that were submitted there was a pistol which was mentioned in the memo form by IPOA which was submitted for examination and it was a sesca pistol serial number F7226. This was not submitted to our lab however it was in the exhibit memo.”
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