July 30, 2021
Court News

Witness delinks PS Kibicho from Itumbi’s letter case

By Faith Karanja / June 29, 2021
A lead investigator in case detailing an alleged letter to attempt to assassinate Deputy President William Ruto has denied claims that he listed Interior PS Karanja Kibicho as one of the witnesses in the case. 
Isaac Ruto on Tuesday said he did not investigate whether the President received the letter as it was not necessary because it was a fake letter.
He was testifying against former State House digital strategist Dennis Itumbi and Samuel Gateri who have been accused of publishing a false statement.
 It is alleged that they published a letter dated May 30, 2019, with the intent to cause anxiety to the public peace.
Gateri is alleged to have made a letter dated May 30 purporting it had been signed by a Cabinet Secretary in the conspiracy to assassinate Ruto.
In the cross examination led by Itumbi’s lawyer Katwa Kigen, Ruto confirmed to court that he did not investigate where the meeting with DP Ruto was held.
When asked by Kigen if he investigated the letter if it had been written by a cabinet secretary, the investigating officer said he did not investigate that.
Kigen, however told court that the investigating officer had not provided any evidence to have the CS confirm that they did not author the letter.
“None of the CS’s wrote the letter as it was Itumbi composed the letter” Isaac told court.
Isaac told Milimani chief magistrate Martha Mutuku that the entire investigating team made the determination that the letter was fake.
“I did not seek the forensic expert to tell if the letter was fake. The expert was to retrieve information not to determine the authentication of the letter”, the officer added.
Isaac said he sent the mobile phones to a forensic experst since he wanted to know who sent the originator of the letter was.
He sought assistance of expert to determine the alarming report in the letter, the court heard. 
He denied participating in the making of the expert report which is filed in court as an exhibit. 
“I gave two mobile phones belonging to Itumbi to retrieve information about the alleged fake letter”, he said. 
The court heard Itumni was arrested in town and not at DP Ruto’s office.
The officer added that at the time of his arrest, Itumbi had deleted details in his phone.
He did not retrieve any information at the forensic expert because it was already tampered with. He had formatted the phones. 
On June 16, Isaac told the court that after he received intelligence information from his boss Peter Maina, he proceeded to Embu where he found Gateri and gained access to his mobile phone. He confiscated his phones and his national identity card.
“Particular information that made me arrest him was because of the information he had posted on his Facebook page and later pulled down,” he said.
The court also heard that no meeting took place at la Mada Hotel.

You may also like

Leave a Reply