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Three police officers charged with helping Masten Wanjala escape from custody
Police constables Precious Mwende (left), Boniface Mutuma and Inspector Philip Mbithi appear in court where they were charged with aiding self-confessed serial killer Masten Wanjala to escape from Jogoo Road Police Station.
Three police officers have been charged with aiding self-confessed serial killer Masten Wanjala to escape from police custody.
The self-confessed serial killer was lynched in Bungoma County after escaping from Jogoo Road Police Station in Nairobi.
They are Inspector Philip Mbithi and police constables Kamakia Mutuma Boniface and Precious Mwende Mwinzi, however, denied aiding a murder suspect Wanjala to escape from Jogoo Road Police Station on the night of October 12 and 13, 2021.
They were also charged with neglecting their duty of preventing Wanjala from escaping from lawful custody. The three were released on Sh150,000 cash bail.
Wanjala, who had confessed to killing 12 children, had been held at the station for 91 days as he waited to face murder charges. The state had applied to have the officers detained for 14 days.
The officers’ lawyer Danstan Omari told the court that they will raise an objection to the criminal case against the police officers since the subject of their prosecution had been killed.
He said that the matter should be resolved administratively and not through a criminal trial. The case will be mentioned on November 4 2021 for pre-trial directions.