Detectives are pursuing people suspected of having met slain lawyer Mathew Kyalo Mbobu for lunch at a city hotel for clues on his killers.
Detectives believe a lunch meeting that slain lawyer Mbobu held at
a Nairobi restaurant could have been a setup for his killing.
The team handling the murder said Thursday they were keen to talk to the
people that Mbobu met at the restaurant for three hours.
This was after a review of security footage at the facility revealed what
officials termed as “suspicious movements and contacts”.
The persons are deemed people of interest in the probe, officials said.
An autopsy was planned on the body on Thursday to establish how he died.
His
body was moved to the Lee Funeral Home on Tuesday night after his murder, where the
exercise is expected to be conducted.
First Lady Mama Rachael Ruto is among those who visited the family at the
mortuary on Tuesday night.
According to those who have seen the footage, he met at least six people
for three hours he was at the joint along Jakaya Kikwete Road.
The nature of their
discussion is yet to be revealed.
The footage is helping piece together Mbobu’s final movements, tracing
his journey from his city office to the restaurant.
He arrived at the hotel at 11:05 am on Tuesday, where he held a
three-hour meeting with several individuals who are now being treated as
persons of interest.
He left at about 1.45 pm after paying a bill of Sh3,800.
The detectives are also relying on his mobile phone records to establish
who he talked to before, during, and after the meeting.
Later that day, at 5:09 pm, Mbobu left his office before heading home.
He was headed for his Bogani residence in Karen when the two assailants
who were trailing him struck with chilling precision.
Among others, the team plans to investigate whether he was killed over his
work.
The team visited three banks where the lawyer had accounts, seeking to establish
if he had made any recent transactions, which could be considered dirty and the
source of the murder.
The team was also working with Mbobu’s partners at his law firm to get to know
his clients to help in the probe. One of his clients is said to have
recorded a statement with the police on Wednesday.
His family will also be talked to state if he had expressed any fears
over his work.
“It could be anything from his work or something else. We are open with
the theories so far,” said a senior official aware of the probe.
Director of DCI Mohamed Amin, in the meantime, appealed to anyone with
information that could assist the investigations to report to the nearest
police station, #FichuKwaDCI toll-free number 0800 722 203 or forward the
information confidentially to the DCI through WhatsApp number 0709 570 000.
“We wish to inform the public that immediately the incident was reported,
the scene was visited by a team of detectives under the leadership of RCIO
Nairobi. After securing the scene, detectives from the DCI Homicide Bureau, supported by experts from the National Forensic Laboratory, carefully examined
the scene and collected critical evidence essential to the investigation.”
“The DCI is committed to ensuring that the perpetrators of this heinous
act are brought to justice. Our investigators are working diligently, employing
all available resources and expertise to piece together the events surrounding
this incident,” he said.
The investigation team had Wednesday visited the office, a restaurant where he
had lunch, and the roads he used prior to his death.
The gunman behind the shooting had been dropped by his
rider and walked casually to where Mbobu was seated in his car, and in a traffic
ja,m before opening fire using a pistol that he had.
Police collected three spent cartridges from the car.
And after shooting the author and law lecturer, the
gunman ran back to a waiting motorcycle and boarded it before it sped off.
Other riders who witnessed the shooting tried to chase
him in vain.
They told police they retreated after the gunman shot
in the air twice, ostensibly to scare them as the rider raced back to the city
centre. Police believe the man was targeted for murder.
Mbobu, a former chairman of the Political Parties Disputes
Tribunal, was shot and killed on Tuesday, September 9, 202,5 at about 5.30 pm as
he drove to his Bogani residence in Karen, police said.
The assailants did not steal anything from him.
He was alone in the car at the time of the shooting.
It was outside the Galleria Mall that the killers were
captured on the security cameras trailing Mbobu’s car.
According to the police, they trailed the car as it
moved at snail's pace past Brookhouse School up to a drift where the traffic
stopped.
The security cameras captured the rider riding past
the car before he made a U-turn, and the pillion passenger, who was the gunman, alighted about 40 meters away, where the lawyer’s car had stopped in a traffic
jam.
The gunman, according to police, walked to the
driver’s side of the lawyer and found the window shield half closed.
It was then that the gunman pulled the trigger, hitting
the lawyer in the chin and head at least three times.
The window shield was shattered. The four-wheel drive
car moved at a slow pace and hit a matatu that was ahead of it as the
passengers, alerted by the gunshots, scampered for their safety.
Other boda boda riders who operate in the area sped to
the scene in attempt to stop the attackers, but were scared after the gunman
shot in the air as they rode off from the scene.
Mbobu’s body was found slumped in the car with the
engine running.
He has been mourned as a good man. There is also
pressure on the police to crack the murder.
