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By:
SUSAN MUHINDI AND CYRUS OMBATI | |||||||||
| Posted:
Feb,01-2024 03:12:47
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| Police have been allowed to detain Kevin Kang'ethe, the man wanted by the US for the alleged murder of girlfriend Margaret Mbitu, for 30 days pending extraditions proceedings. Nairobi magistrate Zainab Abdul directed Kang'ethe be detained at Muthaiga police station to allow further probe into the matter. Kang'ethe is alleged to have murdered Mbitu on October 31 last year by stabbing her multiple times in the face and neck. He then left the body in a locked automobile in a parking garage at Boston Logan International Airport before he fled to Kenya. Court papers indicate the two were residents of Massachusetts and were in a relationship. The deceased is said to have gone missing on October 30, after leaving her place of work. She was working as a home healthcare aide in the town of Halifax, Massachusetts. In an affidavit, Patrick Wachira a police officer based at the DCI, says two days after Mbitu was murdered, Chelsea district court received an application for a criminal complaint charging Kang'ethe with the crime of first-degree murder. The court subsequently issued a warrant of arrest for Kang'ethe for him to be extradited to the US and be charged for the said offence. The DCI officer explains that Kang'ethe was arrested at a club on Monday night in Westlands, Nairobi, and later booked at Gigiri police station. He had been on the run for three months. The officer says from the time they arrested him, they have not had sufficient time to conduct the probe and subsequent extradition to the US had not been adequate. The matter will be mentioned on March 4 to confirm compliance. In the meantime, Massachusetts authorities are hoping to take advantage of Kenya’s extradition treaty with the US, which led to the conviction of two members of the Akasha family on drug trafficking charges. It has emerged the man is a US citizen, who moved to Boston when he was young. He comes from Thogotho, Kiambu county, where his parents lived. His mother died while he was young and had separated from his father, authorities say. He has three siblings-two brothers and a sister. One brother was deported from the US after serving a sentence, police investigations show. The other brother is a US citizen. The sister lives in Europe. Police say when Kang'ethe, 40, left the US in November 2023, he moved to an apartment owned by a relative in Nairobi. The team visited the house for a search as part of the probe into the incident. In the US, Kang'ethe is a property owner, officials say. "He is a rich man in the USA as he has property there," an investigator in the case says. An arrest warrant was issued on November 2, after Massachusetts State Police found the body of Mbaitu, 31, in a car at Boston’s Logan Airport Central Parking garage the night before. US Whitman area police said Mbitu was last seen leaving work in Halifax around 11pm on October 30. Her mother, Rose Mbitu, told the media in the US that her daughter was planning to break up with Kang’ethe. US authorities are convinced of one thing—that Kang'ethe, 40, murdered Margaret, as she was affectionately known to family and close friends, before buying tickets for a 16-hour flight to Nairobi, a move detectives believe was to avoid prosecution. The tickets, it has now emerged, were bought on October 31 morning, just hours after Mbitu’s death. | |||||||||
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Source:
The Star
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