Charles Gathungu, a 53-year-old Murang’a resident, had pocketed nearly Sh150,000 in an avocado brokerage deal on March 12, when he decided to paint Kiria-ini town red, with his girlfriend, Caroline Njoki, in tow.
This relationship was not too illicit. Mr Gathungu’s wife, Milcah Wambui, had long accepted that the other woman was not a love rival, but an equal partner in the avocado broker’s heart. “Don't call that woman (Ms Njoki) a concubine, she was a co-wife who was waiting to join our family and I had accepted it,” she told the Nation.
Mr Gathungu took Sh45,000 from his earnings and called his 32-year-old girlfriend, leaving Sh100,000 with Ms Wambui at home. Hours later, he lay dead in a cell at Kiria-ini Police Station following a series of unfortunate events, which have Ms Njoki as the nexus.
Ms Wambui, 42, says, “My husband had earlier in the day reported home from his avocado customers and after leaving behind about Sh100,000, took off with the Sh45,000 to spend with his girlfriend.”
The drinking date proceeded well at K.K. Bar, but at around 3 pm, five police officers raided it and arrested Mr Gathungu and Ms Njoki. “In a bar that had about 20 patrons, the police appeared to be interested in arresting Ms Njoki only, but Mr Gathungu followed them while protesting,” says Simon Maina, a patron who witnessed the arrests.
Mr Maina says he overheard one of the officers announce to his colleagues that “this is the woman we have been briefed to arrest and pay for her fare to Nairobi.”
Ms Wambui explains that her “co-wife” would abandon her small child in Nairobi as she joined Mr Gathungu in his escapades. Ms Njoki’s mother, who lives outside the country, had allegedly complained about the abandonment several times. This time, she was using the police to scare off her daughter and end her relationship with Mr Gathungu so that she could be present for the child, Ms Wambui claimed.
“Ms Njoki would come to Kiria-ini to link up with my husband while her mother complained that the child was left suffering in the capital. It was not once that my husband had been arrested alongside Ms Njoki in these bars; it would always end in her being transported back to Nairobi and my husband released unconditionally,” she said.
A report from the Kiria-ini station sent to the Murang’a County Security Committee on March 13 indicates “the suspect attempted committing suicide while in the police cell and died while receiving treatment at Kiria-ini Mission Hospital.”
The report, whose reference is OB/20/12/03/25, says Mr Gathungu was discovered hanging in the cell after he used his T-shirt to make a noose around his neck. “The discovery was made after Ms Njoki was heard wailing in the cell and upon going to check, the suspect was found hanging from the metallic grills of the cell,” the report reads.
However, Ms Njoki’s testimony, and that of the hospital, contradicts the police version, leaving the whole issue in grand confusion. Ms Njoki claimed that a group of police officers assaulted Mr Gathungu inside the bar and at the police station.
“Before we were arrested, one of the officers slapped Mr Gathungu twice on the face and even after we were dumped in different police cells; I could hear him screaming in distress,” she said.
The police report says both Mr Gathungu and Ms Njoki were totally drunk, but the waiter, who served them, said the two were into their second beers when the officers stormed K.K. Bar. While the police indicate that Mr Gathungu hanged himself using his T-shirt, Ms Njoki wonders how then the “totally drunk” man managed to scale the slippery walls higher than his height and hang himself.
The police report further states that Mr Gathungu was taken out of the cell while alive, and died in hospital while receiving treatment. The Kiria-ini Mission Hospital incident report dated March 13 indicates that “the officers brought Mr Gathungu while sprawled at the back of police Land Cruiser and we never admitted him because we proclaimed him dead on arrival.”
The hospital adds that Mr Gathungu was dead and their doctors advised the officers, who had accompanied the body, to transport it to the mortuary.
Ms Wambui learnt of her husband’s death at around 11 pm. “Accompanied by some relatives and friends, we went to the police station to make a follow-up. The officers on duty told us Mr Gathungu had been taken from the police cell while sick and admitted to hospital where he died while receiving treatment,” she said. “I was told that my husband had insisted that he be arrested instead of Ms Njoki, who was their target.”
Ms Wambui, now a widow, added that the officers taunted her for accepting to have a “roaming husband” who was causing suffering to little children in Nairobi.
“But I told them that my husband was free to even get 90 women, as long as he could afford to maintain their lifestyles.”
At that point, Ms Wambui claims she was chased away from the police station, allegedly with threats of arrest for disrespecting police officers. “That is how I lost my husband, whom I met in 1997. We moved in together in matrimony two years later. We have three children whom we got in 1997, 2001 and 2009, two of them boys,” she said.
Ms Njoki disputed the suicide claim, saying Mr Gathungu was in a cell with several other suspects, who would have intervened as he took his own life. “I want this incident thoroughly investigated to know why the officers raided the bar and arrested only the two of us.”
Ms Wambui wants justice with regard to the suspicious death, adding that her husband’s demise was fishy.
Murang'a police boss Benjamin Kimwele called for patience as investigators piece up their report on the incident. “Let us wait for [the] postmortem report that will define how exactly the suspect took his life, summon all people of interest to record statements and the truth shall come out,” he said, adding the Occurrence Book at the station will be audited.
For his part, Murang’a County Culture Executive Gachucha Manoah wrote to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) demanding intervention.
“I am aggrieved both as a neighbour of the deceased and an officer of the devolution unit covering the area that a man can be arrested and die in a police cell under conditions that point a finger to police abuse of power,” he said.
Mr Gachucha said no officer is mandated to police village relationships founded by adults on consent. He wants Ipoa to probe several aspects of the death, “including but not limited to who had briefed the officers to go after the love birds if the assault claims are true, why police and medical reports contradict each other, how exactly he died and action being taken on any culprit”.
