Police thwart attempt to rob carjack victim

By Cyrus Ombati

A senior National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) official kidnapped last week has been rescued and four suspects arrested.

The official was kidnapped on the Machakos-Nairobi highway on Friday night as he drove to Nairobi, and taken round the city before police were alerted.

By the time police got information, the gang had confiscated his ATM cards and were headed for a dispenser at a local bank.

Police pounced on three of the gunmen at the teller machine and arrested them.

It was then that the three led officers to Kayole, where they were holding the NSIS official.

Stolen cars

Police said they rescued the man unhurt. His car and another one believed to have been stolen were found in the compound where the victim was kept.

Elsewhere in Nairobi’s Dagoretti Estate, Flying Squad officers shot dead two suspected carjackers and recovered two guns.

In the city’s Mukuru slums, a man was killed after five gunmen posing as customers in a bar turned on other patrons and started to rob them.

Embakasi OCPD Rono Bunei said they were pursuing good leads into the Saturday night incident.

Police are also investigating who killed two men whose bodies were discovered in Kayole and Githurai.

The bodies discovered on Sunday morning had deep wounds.

In Kiamumbi, Kasarani, a suspected thug was gunned down and a pistol loaded with three bullets recovered in a confrontation with police.

Police said the man had tried to attack an officer on patrol when he was killed.

And in Igembe, villagers lynched a suspected carjacker and seriously injured two of his accomplices.

Police took the two accomplices to Maua Methodist Hospital, where they were admitted.

Igembe OCPD Maina Migwi said the three gangsters, armed with a pistol, had carjacked the driver of a taxi they had hired from Meru town to Kiguchwa in Tigania East.

The OCPD said when the thugs reached Kirindine market in Igembe South, they ordered the driver, John Mwiti, to stop. They then bound his hands and legs and bundled him out of the vehicle.

They drove off towards Maua town, but had an accident on the way.

The driver, meanwhile, untied himself and boarded a matatu to report the incident. On the way he saw the vehicle that had overturned and raised the alarm.

One of the gangsters tried to escape but was pursued by villagers, beaten and his body burnt.