• Jhanda says his name is being dragged into shady businesses deals he has nothing to do with.
• Kisii politician has been identified as having played a key role in the scam.
Image: ANGWENYI GICHANA
One of the key suspects in the fake gold scandal rocking the country, Zaheer Jhanda, has again distanced himself from the scam, saying he is a clean man.
"Somebody is trying to link me to some dirty business which I have no information about," said Jhanda at Keumbu in Kisii on Sunday.
Jhanda, who unsuccessfully vied for Nyaribari Chache seat on a Wiper ticket, said it was all fabrication.
It was the first time he was defending himself in his political turf against the string of accusations appearing to put him and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula at the centre of the dubious gold transactions with a businessman from United Arab Emirates, Ali Zandi.
The Dubai royal family member is said to have lost Sh400 million in the suspect deal. The DCI raided an upscale Nairobi neighbourhood and seized boxes containing fake gold.
Wetangula and Jhand have been fingered as persons of interest in the saga that has since sucked in Interior CS Fred Matiang'i and ODM leader Raila Odinga.
On Friday, while attending a burial in Kisii, Odinga said he was only a whistleblower of the suspicious deal after the UAE royal family reached out to him.
He also exonerated Matiang'i and the President from illicit dealings with Zandi.
He spoke of a fake Matiang'i whose identity is still under wraps and whom detectives are looking for in the long winding search for justice for the conned royal family.
But speaking when he toured a children's home in Keumbu, Jhanda said he was a but a clean man whose name was being dragged into shady businesses deals he has nothing to do with.
"This is something I don't have any connection with at all. I am a clean man," he told journalists at the orphanage where he donated Sh100,000.
Since the news of the scandal surfaced a fortnight ago, legislators allied to Deputy President William Ruto have been calling for the sacking of Matiang'i whose name and those of Raila Odinga and the President were invoked by a person suspected to be Wetang'ula in a leaked phone call that has since gone viral.
DCI boss George Kinoti has promised to unravel the matter.
But a week since he vowed to go for the master minds, no big fish has been seized.
Meanwhile, the victim of the con game, Ali Zandi, says he will take nothing less than the gold he paid for.
Zandi is the nephew of Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emir (ruler) of the UAE.
Reports that the Emir had personally sought the intervention of President Kenyatta and Raila raised the stakes on the scandal.
On Friday, Odinga said he visited Dubai on the invitation of the royal family regarding the illicit fake gold deal before he blew the whistle sparking action by security agents.
Politician Jhanda, who has been identified as having played a key role in the scam, has not presented himself to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
He has said he has not received any summons to appear before any investigative agency.
“Nobody has called me. The DCI has not summoned me. I’ve heard my name mentioned and as a law-abiding citizen of this nation, I’ll go to see the DCI,” he told journalists in Nairobi last week.
“I’ll present myself and I’m ready to be questioned. I’ll go and talk to them and shed any kind of light they’d want me to shed.”