By BONIFACE GIKANDI  and JOSEPH MUCHIRI

A sombre mood engulfed Embu GK Prison on Mashujaa Day after a prison warder committed suicide by shooting himself in the stomach.

The man, aged 31, was on duty in the women’s section of the prison when he ended his life at around 8pm.

The head of the women’s section, Esther Lochoto, said the officer had not shown any signs of stress when he reported for work at 6.30pm.

Ms Lochoto said the deceased shot himself inside the correction facility, creating a panic in the prison compound.

“Everyone was alarmed by the sound of gunfire inside the prison. We went to the investigate the source of the noise and found him bleeding,” Ms Lochoto said.

However, a prison warder at the facility said the deceased had lingering domestic issues and had even argued with a relative on the phone that day.

“He had called a relative and was very angry. I think that might have sparked the suicide,” the officer claimed.

Officers from Itabua Police Station took the body to the Embu Provincial General Hospital mortuary.

 And in Murang’a, a prison warden facing interdiction following cases of gross indiscipline was on Thursday found dead in his room in what is suspected to be self-starvation.

The officer was awaiting the determination of disciplinary cases that were pending at the Kenya Prisons headquarters.

The Murang’a Officer in charge of Prison, Henry Karani, said the deceased had on Thursday been  treated at the prison dispensary and discharged.

“The officer has been interdicted and was awaiting the decision of the disciplinary board over his poor work record,” said the officer in charge.

Dead in bed

Yesterday, wardens hinted that the officer could have starved to death as he was not eating and he had turned to alcoholism.

A warden disclosed that his colleague’s whereabouts became a source of suspicious in the morning. Colleagues broke into his room where they found his lifeless body in bed. The body was taken to the Murang’a District mortuary pending investigations into the incident.

Meanwhile, a 38-year-old man   who allegedly murdered his lover in Kawangware, Nairobi, was yesterday arraigned in the High Court to answer to murder charges.

Geoffrey Wanjala Wachule appeared before Justice Roselyne Korir accused of killing Jane Kadogo Mutiso on Sunday night at his home in Gatina in Kawangware.

The accused, however, did not take a plea as the prosecution is still conducting investigations into the killing.

State Counsel Evelyne Onunga requested the court to grant the accused seven more days before he takes his plea.

Justice Korir ordered the man to be remanded at Pangani Police Station until October 29.