Following the escape of three convicts serving time for terrorism-related crimes, police have taken seven wardens from the Kamiti Maximum Prison into custody.
Preliminary investigations, according to Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiangi, suggest that the escape from arguably the country’s most secure maximum prison facility was aided by laxity and incompetence.
He went on to say that after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations moved in to investigate the prison break, there would be more arrests and prosecutions.
A manhunt involving specialized teams has been launched across the country for Musharraf Abdalla Akhulunga a.k.a Zarkarawi, Mohammed Ali Abikar, and Joseph Juma Odhiambo a.k.a Yusuf, according to the CS who led a senior security team to Kamiti prison.
The DCI has placed a Ksh60 million bounty on their recapture.
“We will not only go the direction investigations will point us but we will act resolutely to ensure this kind of recklessness does not happen again because it exposes our people. Definitely, there is a certain level of irresponsibility we have to deal with in this particular case,” Matiangi said.
The CS, who was flanked by principal secretaries Karaja Kibicho (Interior) and Zeynab Mohammed (Correctional Services), Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai, DCI boss George Kinoti, and Commissioner General of Police Wycliffe Ogallo, revealed that their extensive tour of Kamiti, which included Block A 6 where the trio had been held, did not appear to support the official version of escape given by the prisons’ managers.
“We have gone to the place where the escape allegedly happened, and we have formed certain opinions. We don’t want to discuss that because we don’t want to interfere with the work that the DCI is doing,” he added.
