Investigations into the death of electoral commission ICT manager Chris Msando have hit a brick wall 12 months after his brutal murder in what is a strong indictment of the Kenyan police.
The Star has established that the police have since asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to order a public inquest into the killing.
Msando, an IT genius, was murdered on July 28 last year — nine days before the hotly contested August 8 polls — in what threatened to cripple the election.
Also found in a thicket in Kikuyu was the body of 21-year old Carol Ngumbu, a medical student.
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Msando was responsible for the entire body of electoral data, including voter identification, verification, results transmission and the entire electronic tallying process.
Days before his murder, he had promised that it would be impossible to manipulate the presidential vote. His anniversary will quietly be marked on Saturday at Christ the King Catholic Church, Embakasi, even as his family continue agonising over who killed their breadwinner.
Yesterday, his wife Eva Buyu declined to be interviewed but said Msando’s death “is still very painful”.
Msando had stepped in as the acting IEBC ICT director following the suspension of ICT boss James Muhati and some linked his brutal murder to vicious attempts to rig the polls.
Yesterday, political leaders and rights activists who spoke to the Star said police failure to find his killers was a betrayal of the Kenyan people.
“It’s a big betrayal of not only Chris Msando himself, but the millions of Kenyans whom he inspired in his commitment to deliver a clean, credible election, and on whose behalf he sacrificed and paid the ultimate price,”Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi said.
ODM chairman John Mbadi said investigations into Msando’s death should be revived and carried out professionally, especially following the political truce between NASA chief Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“If left to go, it’s going to set a very bad example. Such murders embolden impunity and compromises electoral processes,” he said.
At the time of Msando’s death, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett promised that justice would be done and perpetrators brought to book.
Kenya National Commission of Human Rights vice chairman George Morara said there can never be an excuse for the police to discontinue the investigations. He said the KNCHR and the Law Society of Kenya had recommended to Uhuru to set up a commission of inquiry into exrajudicial killings.
“If the investigations have stopped, then dedicated public servants have every reason to be worried that in the course of dispensing their duty, and what is professionally required of their position, they may come into harm’s way and nothing will happen,” Morara protested.
The Star has established that before leaving office, former DCI boss Ndegwa Muhoro wrote to the DPP requesting an order for public hearing.
The request was made by DCI head of investigations John Kariuki. Police have since dropped charges against two men and a minor who were under investigation for the murder.
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Msando’s Land Rover Discovery was found parked outside a shopping mall along the Thika Superhighway and towed to Kasarani police stations for investigations.
Chief government pathologist Johansen Odour, who conducted a postmortem on the bodies, confirmed they were strangled to death.
Yesterday, DCI officers who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity said the investigations collapsed after police failed to find a direct motive for the murder.
The evidence gathered by the police on three suspects also failed to link the suspects to the murder.
The sources said the DCI had exhausted two theories — love gone sour and business rivalry — but the two yielded no results.
Police at time suspected that Msando could have been killed by men believed to be the lovers of Ngumbu, a theory the family strongly dismissed.
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