• Chief inspector Clement Mwangi told the court the pocket radio obtained from Fredrick Leliman led investigators to the killing site.
• Mwangi will be the last witness to take the stand before the prosecution closes the case.
Image: FILE
A senior police officer in the Willie Kimani murder trial Tuesday explained how a police pocket radio led to the arrest of key suspects.
Chief inspector Clement Mwangi told the court the pocket radio obtained from Fredrick Leliman led investigators to the killing site, two days after it was recovered from him.
Mwangi is the last witness to take the stand before the prosecution closes the case.
Mwangi said Leliman had before the discovery denied any knowledge or involvement in the abduction and subsequent killings of the lawyer.
He was, however, arrested after the police pocket phone was analysed at the Integrated Control and Communication Centre and placed him at the alleged Soweto killing scene.
Willie, his client Josephat Mwenda and driver Joseph Muiruri were brutally murdered at the Soweto area and their bodies were dumped at River Athi.
Mwangi told Justice Jessie Lessit that the pocket phone evidence was a major boost to the investigations because it also led them to two key witnesses who placed the suspects at the scene.
Mwangi believes the three were killed at Soweto area because when they visited the area, they found disturbed grass.
He also said according to police officer Nicholas Olesena, the 44th witness, the pocket radio was captured within that place from 7.30 pm to midnight without any movement being that it is an isolated place.
Mwangi further testified that there is a homestead within the Soweto area and they met Agnes Wayua, the owner of the homestead.
“Upon inquiry, she confirmed she had spotted vehicles and people along the path leading to their homestead that night as she was fetching water,” Mwangi said.
According to Mwangi, she became suspicious leading her to inform a police officer, PC Mitambo, who was her tenant and working at Mlolongo weigh bridge.
“On the same note, we interviewed Mitambo who confirmed that after getting information from Wayua, he was accompanied by three relatives and proceeded to where the vehicles were packed,” Mwangi said.
Upon inquiry the said people told Mutambo that they were officers on ambush duties. He thus left the scene.
Mutambo gave a clear description, saying one of the people was short, dark with a medium belly with a pocket phone. The man is suspected to be Leliman.
He told the police that the second one was covering himself with a red checked Maasai shuka, which was similar to one retrieved from Mwangi’s house days later.
The third person was descried to police as one who was smoking and is believed to be Ngugi, the police informer.
Mwangi said before the discovery of the evidence of the police radio, and prior to retrieving of the three bodies in gunny bags, Mwangi said investigators were treating the matter as that of missing persons.
"We received a report that two bodies that had been retrieved at River Athi on July 30. The following day, another body was retrieved. We found out that they were of the three deceased persons," he said.
Thereafter, the witness said, they started treating the case as that of murder because after the post-morterm examination, they "concluded the cause of death was not natural"
"The bodies had injuries and marks of strangulations," Mwangi told the court.
Earlier in the day, Olesena was re-examined by the prosecution in a bid to tighten their case.
He clarified Mwangi could have been at a different place and his phone at a different place as had been alleged by the defence.
“My lady, a mobile phone is not part of a human anatomy. Mwangi and his phone are two different things. You can leave your phone, give it to someone else and be at somewhere else.
"For a person who was planning such a crime of this magnitude, that was an easy way to conceal where he was" Olesena said.
The case resumes hearing Wednesday morning.