The two-week fight that Elvis Musyoka put up in the intensive care unit did more than just test his will to live, as investigations into his attack may just have cracked open a car theft syndicate run by the very police officers sworn to protect him.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has arrested eight police officers based in Kisumu County in connection with the attack and the mysterious disappearance of Mr Musyoka’s green Toyota Land Cruiser from Maseno Police Station.
Maseno Police Station in Kisumu on August 25, 2019.
Photo credit: File | Nation
The eight police officers were taken into custody on Monday evening and are being held at the Kisumu Central Police Station, pending further interrogation.
Investigators believe that three of the arrested officers could have committed at least three robberies in Joska, Machakos County.
An official familiar with the investigations told Nation that the Operation Support Unit (OSU) investigators have also submitted several firearms from the police station for ballistic examination to establish if they were used in the robbery.
The other five officers are believed to have helped their colleagues to drive the stolen vehicle out of the police station, in an attempt to conceal evidence that could link them to Mr Musyoka’s attack and the other robberies in Joska.
Mr Musyoka was driving to his Matungulu home on September 7 when, at around 10 pm, a motorcycle bumped the side of his car.
He thought it was a fender bender that would be resolved within a few minutes, but it was a decoy for the carjackers to get their hands on Mr Musyoka’s luxury sports utility vehicle.
The attackers assaulted and forced him to transfer money from his phone before driving away in his Land Cruiser.
As doctors were treating the severely injured businessman, a robbery with violence report was being recorded at the KBC police station in Matungulu, Machakos County.
Three days later, another businessman in Kisumu County reported to the police that a vehicle without a number plate had been parked outside his building in Maseno shopping centre.
The Maseno businessman reported that there were blood stains on the car seats, and it appeared that the vehicle had been abandoned.
In Machakos County, police from Joska were already looking for the missing car and hoping that Mr Musyoka would recover and be lucid enough to give them leads to solve the crime.
By this time, a group of officers from the DCI Operation Support Unit (OSU) had been embedded into the investigation team, specifically to find the missing car and trace the criminals who attacked Mr Musyoka.
Maseno officers conducted preliminary crime scene investigations, which included dusting the vehicle for fingerprints.
Photo credit: Pool
Immediately after towing the Land Cruiser to Maseno Police Station, the officers informed their counterparts in Joska and the DCI that they had recovered a vehicle matching the description of the stolen one.
The Maseno team conducted preliminary crime scene investigations, which included dusting the vehicle for fingerprints.
But the vehicle, a critical piece of evidence that could potentially lead detectives to Mr Musyoka’s attackers, was somehow driven out of Maseno police station that same night.
After the car disappeared from the police custody, Jackson Owino, the deputy head of the DCI Operation Support Unit, was deployed to Maseno to lead the investigation.
Preliminary investigations by Mr Owino’s team indicated that three officers at Maseno Police Station had most likely facilitated its mysterious disappearance from the usually secure premises.
The probe further indicated that three other officers from the same station may have been involved in Mr Musyoka’s robbery, and at least three other similar incidents in the same Joska area.
Investigators are, however, yet to forensically place the three suspected carjackers at the scene of the crime in Joska.
When Mr Musyoka is physically ready, he will attend a planned identification parade to verify whether any of the police officers in custody are the men who attacked him on the night of September 7.
