Onyancha's former teacher denies recruiting him, accuses police of torture

BY WAHOME THUKU

A high school teacher has denied ever having links to suspected serial killer Philip Onyancha.

Ms Elizabeth Wambui Kimani accused the police of torturing her to admit to recruiting Onyancha into a cult whose rituals included killing and drinking people’s blood.

She told a Nairobi court that police forced her to make a confession statement that she administered oath to Onyancha when she taught him CRE and Kiswahili at Kenyatta Mahiga High School in Othaya, Nyeri.

Wambui was giving her defence in the case in which she is accused of having administered an oath binding Onyancha to commit murder and other crimes. Onyancha is facing murder charges before a Nairobi High Court judge.

She went to Wendani police post in Nairobi to report a stranger who called to say they were coming for her. She was arrested and locked up at that police station.

Ms Kimani told Senior Principal Magistrate Grace Nzioka that at the police station, she was shown newspaper articles covering the Onyancha episodes, whom she denied having any knowledge of.

She could remember that there was only one student from the Kisii community who studied at Kenyatta Mahiga School in the Kikuyu dominated Nyeri District.

The accused, who was unrepresented, told the court she was held in various police stations in Nairobi and Thika.

"I was harassed and beaten up. I was told that I would be killed if I did not cooperate with the police," she claimed.

She said at one point a CID officer lit a matchstick and threatened to burn her private parts.

She was also stripped as investigators searched for body marks to confirm she was involved in the cult, the court heard.

Ms Kimani told the court the investigator dictated to her a recorded statement claiming she drank blood of three people.

She said she met Onyancha at Kilimani Police Station during the interrogation and could not recall him as one of her students.

"I had never seen or known him before," she told the court, adding that she was a committed Christian.

Wambui will this morning be cross-examined by the police prosecutor.