A policeman who is wanted over allegations of renting out guns to criminals has surrendered.
Senior sergeant Gabriel Rotich, 56 attached to DCI Kiambu division had been on the run for close to a week after a gun assigned to him was recovered from slain criminals.
He surrendered to Nairobi Area police Thursday and told his colleagues he did not want to die. He was later taken in for interrogation.
He went missing since Friday when two gunmen were killed along Enterprise Road in Nairobi where police said they recovered two pistols.
Police searched his house on Wednesday and recovered a Taurus pistol loaded with five bullets, which was missing from police armory, a bullet proof vest, a holster and two pistol magazine pouches.
In his office, an empty pistol magazine, 47 bullets and 41 spent cartridges were recovered.
Police who conducted the raid said the officer had not recorded in the armory he was holding the weapons.
The men were riding on a motorbike when officers from Special Crimes Prevention Unit who had been trailing them struck.
According to the head of the unit Noah Katumo, the men were headed for a robbery mission when they were felled and that the two pistols had seven bullets each.
During the shootout, a pedestrian was shot and injured in the leg and is recovering in hospital.
One of the pistols recovered from the suspects was traced to the Kiambu officer. The second one is believed to belong to a civilian who was robbed of the same in the city.
The officer was in charge of the armory on Friday. It is believed he leased out the weapon to the gunmen before they were confronted and killed.
Cases of misuse of police weapons are on the rise amid calls for tightening mechanisms of handling them.
