• Knowing where Njau is or getting his body to bury would give family closure, allow progress, family say.
• At the news of any body recovered in any place, Nick often dashes there to see if it is his brother.
Since the evening of February 7 when city lawyer Ben Njau Kayai was abducted, days and weeks have turned into four months and his family is increasingly desperate.
No information from the police on the progress of the investigations and no hint about his whereabouts. So, who may have wanted him gone and is he still alive? The family is almost resigning to fate.
The lawyer was abducted by unknown people in Nairobi along Muhoho Avenue in South C at about 5.30pm.
CCTV footage in possession of the police show that Kiyai’s hired car was blocked front and rear by two vehicles before he was dragged out and frog marched to a waiting one. An officer aware of the investigations say he did not put up a resistance.
His brother Nick Kiyai told the Star on Thursday that his family was begging for closure because the more “Ben continues to be a way and no one knows where he is, the more anxious we are and nothing is moving”.
“We have seen missing people emerge and their bodies retrieved. The missing people from Kitengela had their bodies retrieved in Murang’a. The Somali American’s body got retrieved in Kirinyaga. Why can’t we get any information about Ben?”
At the news of any body recovered in any place, Nick often dashes there to see if it can be his brother.
He said his distressed family have scouted every police station, hospital and mortuary.
“I have visited every morgue in town in vain. We just want closure.”
With his brother away, he said, it is difficult for his two sons, Ian, 23, and Rick, 20, to access his accounts to sustain his businesses or pay his workers because he has not been certified dead.
In 2019, Njau was ordered by a court to return Sh20 million he had apparently stolen from a client. The family said the matter had been settled.
In the case, Njau was charged with stealing the money from Stephen Muchina on December 2, 2016, in Nairobi.
The charge sheet said Njau, Muchina's lawyer, stole the money entrusted to him to paying Geoffrey Gitau for the sale of a plot in Ruiru municipality.
The court issued the order after Njau failed to repay the money after two years. The lawyer had requested the court to grant him more time to settle the matter out of court.
It is not clear whether the disappearance is related to this case.
Law Society of Kenya, which has been teaming with the family to pursue the matter, said they have filed applications in court to extract the CCTV footage and his last call logs.
The society's CEO Mercy Wambua told the Star the court granted the orders compelling the police, authorities at Nairobi Metropolitan Services and telco Safaricom to produce the needed materials but they are yet to comply.
Wambua led a team of lawyers and LSK officials to Lang'ata police station on Wednesday to follow up the progress of the investigations.
Edited by Henry Makori