• 'How can a supposedly high-profile thug who stole Sh72 million from a bank resort to mugging people on the streets for Sh20 or Sh100?'
• A highly placed police figure who declined to be named said Oduor lived a daring life of crime.
Image: COURTESY
A city lawyer has differed with the police over the death of Sh72 million heist suspect Wycliffe Oduor on Tuesday.
While official police statement indicated Oduor was fatally shot after a botched robbery in Nairobi's Kayole junction area, his lawyer, Cliff Ombetta, told the Star the police lured him out of his house then shot him at close range before concocting an explanation.
According to the account released by DCI officers, Oduor, alongside others, was shot dead by special crime officers on Tuesday as they tried to rob a person. The detectives said Oduor and his team, armed with a kitchen knife and rifles, had waylaid a member of the public at Kayole junction, but the victim shouted and called for help, hence police officers on patrol confronted them.
But a furious Ombetta picked holes in the explanation given by the police, claiming that no elements of usual crime handling had been adduced.
"I'm aware they lured my client by a woman who called him after he had a late lunch with his wife. They then shot him at close range. There is no OB number about the crime. No one reported it and no spent cartridges have been reported collected," he said.
"Unlike the usual way, no gun or knife was shown to the public. How can a supposedly high-profile thug who stole Sh72 million from a bank resort to mugging people on the streets for Sh20 or Sh100?"
The DCI said Oduor and his team defied a police order to surrender and instead engaged the officers in a vicious shootout while attempting to escape.
"The mastermind in Sh72 million Nairobi West ATM heist last year Wycliff Vincent Oduor was today gunned down in a fierce shootout between a three-man gang of robbery with violence suspects and detectives responding to a distress call from the public at Kayole Junction in Nairobi," the DCI said on Tuesday on its Twitter account.
"Armed with pistols and riding on a motorbike, the three started robbing members of the public at the said location, a scene that attracted the attention of a team of Kayole detectives on patrol. The gang defied orders to surrender, engaging the officers in a fire exchange, which left the said suspect down."
For his part, however, Ombetta said the suspect was executed in a mafia-style, terming the killing an epitome of extrajudicial killing. He said Oduor had repeatedly told him he was being harassed by police operatives and was often threatened with death, suggesting that it was a matter of when, not if, the police would have him dead.
"There is no way you can leave your house at 4 pm and be at City Mortuary by 6 pm. They had always marked him for death," the criminal lawyer said.
He said detectives had always forced Oduor to admit that he was a police officer.
Life of crime?
But a highly placed police figure who declined to be named said Oduor lived a daring life of crime, surviving on it while leaving casualties, some dead and others injured in his wake.
He said Oduor was well connected with law enforcement bosses who looked the other way as he perpetrated crimes, sharing with them the loot over the blood of his victims.
From pulling a grand Sh72 million heist at a bank in the city last year to an almost suicidal broad daylight robbery in Kayole on Tuesday, Wycliffe Oduor was living recklessly and dangerously, the officer said, violence was his tool of trade and he was vicious at it.
"I can tell you a fact that this guy is well known among some of us. He has lived a life of crime and was ruthless at it," the senior official said.
In September last year, Oduor, alongside two others, put on a replica Administration Police uniforms and armed with rifles and stormed Standard Chartered Bank’s Nairobi West branch, masquerading as money escort officers.
In what appeared to be an intelligence-led robbery, Oduor accosted the convoy of the money, which was being moved from G4S headquarters in Industrial Area.
Without a single shot, the criminals made away with Sh72 million, part of which was stolen from the convoy and the rest withdrawn from an ATM in Nairobi West.
The robbers would then run upcountry, buying luxury items, including vehicles. Some of the money was recovered in cowsheds and huts in rural homes. He was later arrested, charged and released on Sh500,000 bond.