A Kenyatta University graduate accused of impersonating former DCI chief Ndegwa Muhoro and IG Joseph Boinnet has died at the Industrial Area remand.
John Kibowen, 24, was confirmed dead at the Kenyatta National Hospital on June 18 after he allegedly collapsed at the prison.
strangled?
Two separate postmortem examinations have been conducted, but no results have been released.
His mother Jane Anyango said in police statements her firstborn son was strangled to death by a warden during a scuffle at the remand on the night of June 16.
Kibowen completed his undergraduate studies in Computer Science in KU last year and was awaiting graduation this year.
Anyango recorded statements with the DCI at Kilimani yesterday. The businesswoman at Kenyatta Market told the police she witnessed a postmortem on her son by government pathologist Johannes Odour and Emily Njeru.
The two pathologists are yet to formally release the results but told the family they observed visible injuries on the neck, not consistent with a fall.
She told the police the pathologists explained there was a blood clot in Kibowen’s head and black marks on his left arm. They said the death could be a result of an assault.
The two pathologists are expected to file their results this week. The family has had to postpone burial dates until the findings are released. The officer in charge of Industrial Area prison, James Kodieny, yesterday met the family and denied that Kibowen was assaulted by a warden.
He declined to give the family answers on the cause of death.
The mother sought an explanation on the action that prison authority took when Kibowen collapsed. She demanded to know what ailment Kibowen was diagnosed with at the prison’s healthcare.
There were reports she received from a fellow inmate that her son was assaulted to death by a warden who spotted him with a mobile phone. Kodieny, who was in the company of two other senior prisons officers, was at pains to explain the circumstances relating to the death.
answers sought
He said Kibowen collapsed on June 16 while queuing for meals and died later at KNH where he was rushed for treatment.
The top cop declined to reveal to the family what ailment the son was suffering and if he died at the prison as alleged by fellow inmates.
The prison chiefs also declined a request by the family to talk to the prisons nurse who attended to her son and declined to have the family access the medical records at the clinic.
“Why don’t you want to give us details of his death, which we need as a family?” Anyango said.
Kodieny told the family a senior officer had been sent from the prisons headquarters to investigate the death, but declined to reveal the status of their probe.
The three top cops did not look surprised when Anyango told them she received information from a caller at the remand that Kibowen was killed in a scuffle. She said the caller told her Kibowen was taken to an isolation room by the officer who demanded that he hand over the cell phone and cash. “The officer kicked Kibowen until he fell unconscious after he failed to produce the phone,” Anyango said.