A man interviewed by British Media Sky News on a stowaway who fell off the undercarriage of a Kenya Airways plane in London has denied that the man identified as Paul Manyasia is his son.
On Tuesday evening, Sky News premiered an investigative piece which revealed the identity of the man who fell from the plane moments before landing at the at London’s Heathrow Airport in June as Paul Manyasia.
He noted that his son is called Cetric Shivanji Isaac and not Paul Manyasia.
According to the man from Western Kenya, his son is detained at Industrial Area Prison and he was planning on paying him a visit on Friday.
“Niliwaambia picha sio sawa tena majina sio sawa,” he said adding that they last spoke in July 2017.
My son is alive. Father of the alleged stowaway says his son is alive and he is not the man that fell from a plane in London@CzedaBrenda @WillyLusige #KTNNewsCentre https://t.co/oDiC6wLzoC pic.twitter.com/PXJo4GpJL2
— KTN News (@KTNNewsKE) November 13, 2019
According to the Sky News report by their Africa correspondent John Sparks, the 29-year-old was an employee of Colnet, a company that provides cleaning services at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Sky News relied on details from a Colnet employee identified only as Irene.
“We were at work in the morning…he suddenly disappeared. I called his phone it was off,” Irene, who was Manyasi’s girlfriend, told Sky News.
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Irene positively identified Paul’s personal items including a bag scribbled the letters “MCA” and shorts that were recovered from the plane after the incident.
She, however, couldn’t confirm that the e-fit photo generated by London’s Metropolitan Police entirely matched Paul’s facial features saying “They look alike but Paul wasn’t dark – not dark – but the face resembles Paul.”
Sparks also interviewed Paul’s friend and neighbour at Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum which is near the airport.
The man only identified as Patrick said Paul had told him that he was eyeing another job outside Kenya but did not specify where exactly.
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Sparks also interviewed Paul’s parents in Western Kenya, who confirmed that the bag recovered was similar to the one owned by their son.
In a statement released on Tuesday evening, KAA rubbished the reports saying the authority had done its investigations and found out that nobody by the name Paul Manyasia worked at JKIA.
“Colnet Limited Kenya is a cleaning company contracted by Kenya Airports Authority. The name Paul Manyasia does not appear in the JKIS register, ” said KAA.
KAA added that all staff working at the airport require access pass, but a search by KAA team revealed that the name did not appear in its Airport Pass Bio Metric Register either.
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“The identity of the stowaway is an open and active investigation and any information received will be investigated to ensure a factual conclusion, ” added KAA.
A statement released by Colnet corroborated that of KAA. The company said, “without doubt, we don’t have, and have never had Paul Manyasi as an employee.”
“Colnet is aware of the incident by way of fact that there were investigations carried out on the stowaway incident and the company has provided all its employee’s record and information to the investigative authorities which confirm that there is no employee by the name Paul Manyasi, ” said Colnet.
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