Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale now wants police to arrest Kakamega businessman Cleophas Shimanyula over his recent utterances on the death of his long-serving farmhand a week ago.
Speaking during the burial of Kizito Amukune who was gored to death by the senator’s bull, he said that police should not leave the businessman, popularly known as Toto, to feel like he is above the law after wrongfully accusing him of the death of his farmhand and stopping the burial.
"I want to tell our OCPD [Officer Commanding Police Division] and county police commander to take charge, because my Isukha and Idakho people will only be happy if they will receive news that Cleophas Shimanyula, alias Toto, is arrested," Khalwale said.
But Shimanyula said that it is the senator who should be arrested and charged with murder.
“He wants me arrested for what offence? How does one get arrested for demanding for investigations over the death of another,” he told the Star on phone.
The businessman was heard in a video that went viral on social media claiming that Khalwale had killed his farmhand.
The senator, however, denied involvement and allowed the police to carry out a second postmortem on Amukune’s body.
This was after Shimanyula’s claims that the deceased could have been killed and dumped in the bull’s shade.
A second autopsy on Saturday by the chief government pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor confirmed the initial postmortem that he was killed by the bull.
Amukune, 47, was laid to rest at his Malinya home on Monday. Bulls fought on his grave to honour and appease his spirits for being an ardent bullfighting supporter in what is known in Luhya as ‘Shilemba’.
The bull that gored the farmhand to death was later killed by neighbours and its meat shared in line with Luhya traditions to appease the dead.
His remains were removed from the Kakamega county funeral parlour on Sunday and escorted by hundreds of bullfighting supporters in a procession through Kakamega town before heading to Malinya in Ikolomani.
Family members, friends and community described Amukune as a hardworking person who was down to earth and jelled with anyone whom he met.
“I have not much to say but my heart is at peace for eventually burying my son, he was a humble and a peaceful man and, today, we release him to rest in peace," Maurice Odanga, the deceased's father, said.
His relatives said that they did not have any problem with the senator as the farmhand's death was purely an accident.
