Lawyer Kyalo Mbobu, who was shot in Nairobi dead on September 9, 2025 while driving home. Inset: His vehicle at Nairobi Area Police Station in Nairobi on September 10, 2025.
A new team of investigators from the Homicide Unit of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations has taken over investigations into the killing of lawyer Mathew Kyalo Mbobu.
Three people who were arrested following the killing were freed on Saturday night after investigations cleared them of any role in the murder.
After analyzing statements recorded by Langata DCI investigators, the new team concluded there was no reason to continue holding the three men who had been in custody since Thursday night.
Mr George Wainaina, a Kanu official, Mr Paul Mbugua, a relative of Wainaina and Mr Eric Gichuhi, a friend of the slain lawyer, had been arrested by officers from the DCI Operation Support unit (OSU) after CCTV footage showed they were among the last people who had met the lawyer.
Wainaina told police he met Mbobu, who was with Gichuhi, at the Sargret Hotel in Nairobi. Wainaina explained he had gone to the hotel to meet with his employee whom he wanted to give some cheques.
Mbobu and Gichuhi were leaving the hotel and the three exchanged pleasantries then parted ways. Gichuhi told police that he had met Mbobu for lunch. The two friends who had studied at the University of Nairobi lived in the same neighborhood in Karen.
Gichuhi told the investigators that Mbobu drove back to his office after the lunch meeting. Mbugua said he did not know Mbobu and he was at the hotel to meet his boss.
On Sunday, Wainaina told the Daily Nation he was shocked at the decision by the police to arrest him over the murder.
“I just wonder why they made the decision to arrest us in a very embarrassing manner in front of our families without properly doing their investigations,” he said.
He said the detectives who stormed his house took away Sh50 million that was in a safe at his Karen home.
Arrest and detention of the three
“They arrested me unprepared; no-one gave me time to even change my clothes. I was thrown into a cold cell at Kileleshwa Police Station,” said Mr Wainaina.
The politician said his lawyer Musa Maulid is following up on the money with the police.
Wainaina said he was taken to Nairobi Area Police Station, the headquarters of the homicide wing of the DCI, where detectives asked him what kind of business he was doing with Mbobu.
“They pressured me and demanded to know what kind of business I was doing with the lawyer. I just informed them I had never engaged with him,” he said.
He was also asked to name people he knew might be doing business with the murdered lawyer.
Maulid told the Daily Nation the arrest and detention of the three was malicious, unjustified, and a reckless abuse of police powers.
“We wish to make it clear that the forensic phone analysis, the ballistic examination of the firearm, and the alibis independently verified have all conclusively exonerated the three individuals from any connection whatsoever to the murder probe,” said Mr Malid.
The advocate questioned why the police singled out the three from the many people who were at the restaurant.
On Sunday, an investigator familiar with the probe told the Nation that the homicide investigators were now focused on the deals and cases that Mbobu was involved in.
Mbobu was shot dead last Tuesday (September 9, 2025) by two assassins on a motorcycle at a section where overgrown vegetation covers both sides of Magadi road.
The spot chosen by the killers is a few meters from a sharp bend. Owing to ongoing road construction drivers must slow down to navigate the sharp bend and give way to vehicles approaching from the Ongata Rongai direction.
