Policemen, taxi driver arrested in connection with missing nurse

Three policemen and a taxi driver have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a nurse based in Meru.

The policemen, based in Riruta and Kabete police stations, were arrested after it emerged that they were the last people to speak to the missing nurse identified as Job Omariba.

Omariba was reported missing last Friday. His wife Lucy said she last saw him on August 21, when he left Meru for Nairobi. He had reportedly come to meet a friend who would help him shop for a car. Lucy said Omariba wanted to buy a Probox to help him supply meat to butcheries in Meru.

She said Omariba stopped working as a nurse in April to venture into business. The couple have a three-year-old son.

"He told me he wanted to buy a car and a friend would help him get it. I have not heard from him since then," Lucy, also a nurse in Meru County, said.

She said her husband had about Sh20,000 by the time he left for Nairobi but made another withdrawal of Sh33,000 from an ATM in Dagoretti.

Lucy, who left Meru for Nairobi Monday to pursue the matter, said: "Police are yet to give me an update on the progress they have made regarding the disappearance since it was reported in Nairobi."

Security cameras in the ATM captured Omariba in the company of some of the policemen in custody.

The four suspects were arrested by officers from the Special Crime Prevention Unit at the weekend. They were expected at the Kibera law courts Monday morning for police to get authority to detain them as investigations go on.

Officers handling the case said Omariba was also spotted boarding a taxi along Moi Avenue in the company of three men. Police fear he may have been lured to the city and say they are yet to establish the nurse's whereabouts.

However, they have established that one of the officers in custody comes from Meru and held a grudge against Omariba. This was after five of his goats went missing and were later traced to one of Omariba's butcheries.

"But we have not found any links between his disappearance and the matter of the goats. It may be a coincidence," a police source said Monday.

The incident comes two months after four police officers were arrested for the abduction and murder of human rights lawyer Willie Kimani.