Farmer shot soon after recording statements at CID headquarters

By Francis Ngige

Coffee wars at the troubled Othaya Co-operative Society have turned nasty after a farmers’ representative was left nursing gunshot wounds.

Mr Kariuki Kiboi, who has been vocal in opposing the management’s decision to acquire its own milling plant, is admitted to the Outspan Hospital in Nyeri.

Kiboi was attacked after he recorded a statement at the CID headquarters in the district over the controversy that has hit the giant co-operative.

Four armed men cornered him near Mahiga Secondary School in Othaya as he walked home after alighting from a vehicle from Nyeri.

Narrating his ordeal from the hospital bed, the farmer said a suspicious vehicle had earlier before the attack trailed him from the main road.

"The vehicle whose registration I have given to police had driven to and from Mahiga more than three times before the attack. I noted the registration number as the occupants looked suspicious," he Kiboi.

The farmer, who lost three teeth during the ordeal, said the gang hit him with assorted weapons and opened fire when security guards at a nearby school raised the alarm. He added: "It is by God’s grace that I am alive as my attackers wanted me dead. Were it not for the students and the watchmen at the school, I don’t think these people would have spared me."

Kiboi said he had been receiving threatening calls over his opposition to the management’s stand before the incident, adding he had given the callers’ phone number to the police.

Possible link

Othaya DC David Koskei said police were investigating whether the attack had any link to the controversy facing the co-operative.

"At the moment we are not ruling out anything because the old man has previously recorded statements about threatening calls over his stand on the co-operative," said Koskei.

The DC said the gang was armed with AK-47 rifles.

He said the registration number given to the police by the man and the mobile numbers used to threaten him were crucial leads to detectives probing the case.