Thika GK prison warder charged with rape of woman visitor

Silhouette of prison watchtower [Courtesy]

Amos Momanyi, a prison warder at the Thika GK Prison was yesterday charged with rape in a case that has intrigued law enforcers.

Momanyi who appeared before Thika senior resident magistrate Oscar Wanyaga denied the charges and was remanded at Thika police station for seven days to allow police complete their investigations.

Momanyi was arrested yesterday within Thika Police Station where he had been summoned to make further statements for allegedly raping a 21-year-old woman. The woman alleges she was sexually abused on Monday, October 4, when she had gone to visit her husband, who works at the facility.

The alleged victim said she lives in Kisii, where her spouse previously worked and had been invited to Thika Prison to visit him.

“On Sunday, my husband sent me bus fare via Mpesa, and gave me directions to his workplace. I travelled to Thika the following day,” the alleged victim told detectives.

She and her son, aged one-and-a-half years, arrived in Thika at 8pm on Monday. In her statement to police, she said at the Thika GK Prison’s main gate she met two warders who could not locate the husband, but offered to host her for the night.

“They asked me to spend the night in a small mabati house in the staff quarters, promising to help me trace my spouse the following day,” she said in her statement. The woman alleges that a few minutes to 11pm, the two warders returned and locked the door from the inside using a chair and proceeded to gang rape her.