Imposter PPO rearrested moments after release

By Antony Gitonga
Naivasha, Kenya: The ongoing police imposter soap-opera continued after CID officers thwarted efforts to release the suspect Joshua Waiganjo on bond.

Hours after a Naivasha court released him on a Sh4m bond, officers from Nyeri CID headquarters moved in to have the suspect rearrested.

The officers led by Nyeri deputy DCIO David Makau arrived at the Naivasha law courts with a warrant of arrest from a Nyeri court.

Making an application before Naivasha Resident Magistrate Seline Muchingi, the officers wanted the accused transferred to Nyeri.

According to the Chief Inspector Mike Muya who led the prosecution, Waiganjo was wanted in Nyeri for absconding court proceedings.

Muya told the court that the accused was in 2010 charged with obtaining through false pretense and personating but went missing before the case could be concluded.

The magistrate, however, overruled this noting that the accused needed time to inform his lawyers on the new development.

The resident magistrate directed that the matter be handled by Naivasha Senior Principal Magistrate Esther Boke on January 15, 2013.

On Wednesday, Boke released Waiganjo on a Sh4m bond and three sureties of the same after he was charged with twelve counts.

The accused was charged with four counts of robbery with violence along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.

He was charged of violently robbing Francis Ng’ang’a and Dismas Mwangi off a lorry, cash and personal effects valued over Sh4m on the 17th of August, 2012 in Kikopey.

The third and fourth charges stated that on the 24th of August 2012 in Keroche along the Nairobi-Naivasha highway, he robbed David Mwai and Francis Mwangi of cash and property valued at Sh222,000.

He faced four other charges of being in possession of police informs in his Gilgil and Njoro homes which he had obtained illegally.

The accused denied all the counts and the case will come up for hearing on the 23rd of January 2013.