Foul play: Man arrested by police found dead days later

To a passer-by, the group of around eight young men sitting idly on a muddy pavement outside one of the residential buildings in Imara Daima estate’s Villa Franca area appear to be having an ordinary day.

After all, they are no different from the tens of other young men clustered in groups all across the neigbourhood, some talking passionately about topics like football and others conversing more quietly.

But on this particular day, it is not the usual soccer banter or political analyses that have brought them together. As a cobbler patiently fixes a pair of torn sneakers nearby, the other men look on with expressions that range from empty to sad and anguished.

Beside them, on a blue plastic stool, is a green A5 exercise book for recording funeral contributions.

Stapled to it is a photograph of Michael Mutiso Ndolo, a friend they often referred to as Muyuti, who died between April 29 and May 5 under curious circumstances.

Blurred photograph

The blurred photograph is the only one his friends could find. But it accurately captures the appearance described by his friends — light-skinned and sporting a black afro.

According to the friends, two of them identified as Justus Busaka and Erico, Mr Ndolo was arrested by police from the Villa Franca Police Post on April 28 and accused of sexually abusing a minor.

“A woman called the police on Ndolo and they arrested him and took him to the police post, where he spent a night before being taken to Embakasi Police Station,” narrates a visibly disturbed Mr Busaka.

According to a neighbour, before the policemen took Ndolo to the police post, they beat him up severely outside the building.

The officers at Villa Franca Police Post admit to arresting Ndolo but say they transferred to him to Embakasi Police Station the same day.

“The woman who reported the abuse accused him of forcing her four-year-old daughter to perform oral sex on him,” revealed two police officers who did not want to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the press.

“We treat cases of sexual abuse very seriously and since such cases were handled by Embakasi Police Station we transferred him there immediately,” they added.

Busaka said: “We knew Muyuti was at Embakasi Police Station because one of our friends went there and saw him. When we went there after two days we could not find him and the officers had not even recorded his arrest or release in the Occurrence Book.”

The friends said a few days later, they heard rumours that Ndolo’s body had been found in the Soweto area of Kayole and taken to City Mortuary, but added that they did not know the original source of the rumours.

City Mortuary

Busaka said when he heard the news, he, along with other friends, went to City Mortuary, where they found Ndolo’s body booked as number 70002.

While some say the body was found in a pool of water, others state that it was lying in sewage.

“The police are trying to insinuate that Muyuti died by drowning but we know they murdered him. He had blood all over him and we saw bruises on his body,” the friends claimed.

They also deny police accounts of Ndolo being a child molester.

“He was a good man who loved to play with children,” they said.

The people who saw Ndolo’s body also say he appeared to have died before May 5, the date his body was found and taken to City Mortuary.

The police, however, have denied that they murdered Ndolo. Those at Villa Franca Police Post indicated that the woman had decided not to press charges against him, which prompted the officers at Embakasi to release him.

Embakasi OCPD Onyango Mangira however said he was unaware of the incident, adding that the family should report it to the station if they suspected any foul play.

But the exact date and manner of Ndolo’s death may never be known, after his father declined to have a post-mortem performed.

He also declined to discuss his son’s death.

“We do not want to follow up this issue. Let it just end. We leave everything to God,” Ndolo’s father said when contacted by The Standard.