DCI George Kinoti yesterday said it is standard police procedure to keep covert operations secret.
Kinoti was reacting to a story published yesterday on how DCI investigators clashed with their uniformed counterparts over contraband ethanol.
"We never ever inform anybody about our intended operation. We have no obligation at all,” he said.
“That is standing procedure of all covert ops all over the world. It is limited to only those participating and in varying degree of involvement," the DCI said in a text message to the Star.
Officers from a covert police squad, answerable only to the DCI chief, were on Sunday night involved in a near shootout with officers manning a road block in Kitengela.
The officers differed over a lorry carrying what is believed to be ethanol that had been sneaked into the country after being declared as molasses at the Kenya –Tanzania boarder at Namanga.
Yesterday, the Star learnt that the operation was sanctioned by Kinoti and all other police commanders were kept in the dark over the operations.
The police chiefs among them Flying squad head Musa Yego and DCI operations chief Samuel Nyabengi who ordinarily would be privy to such operations were in the dark until 10pm when three officers from Kinoti’s secret unit ran into trouble with their colleagues at the Kitengela road block.
Details of the operation were kept a top secret only between Kinoti and one officer among the three who were tasked with the operation.
Highly placed sources familiar with the planning told the Star the DCI telephoned a police sergeant in Parklands DCI offices and instructed him to proceed to Namanga where the lorry carrying ethanol had been sighted.
A serious confrontation ensured at the Kitengela road block after the officers manning the road block demanded to know from the DCI officers why they were driving ahead of the lorry they claimed to have arrested.
There was an altercation between the two police units. The DCI officers were disarmed and made to produce their job identification cards.
Senior police officers from the Nairobi Flying Squad were deployed to Kitengela to end the stalemate that lasted for close to six hours. Senior police commanders from Kitengela and Kajiado were also called to the scene following the clash.
Investigations into the clash between the police officers are expected to start. But none had been ordered by last night.
