Kasipul MP Charles Ong’ondo Were was gunned down by a motorcycle assassin near Nairobi Funeral Home, minutes after leaving Parliament.
At around 2.40pm on April 30, a call was made to the cellphone of an aide of Kasipul MP Charles Ong’ondo Were.
The aide, who was at Parliament Buildings at the time, had a conversation with the caller that lasted one minute and 10 seconds.
This was not the first time that the caller was speaking to the MP’s bodyguard. Two days earlier, the bodyguard had received a call from the same number.
But the call on the afternoon of April 30 has interested the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) because the lawmaker was shot dead hours later. The bodyguard and the MP’s driver have since been arrested.
Parliamentary staff and forensic experts outside the Nairobi Hospital on April 30, 2025 as they secure the vehicle in which Kasipul MP Charles Ong'ondo Were was shot dead at close range by two gunmen on motorbike.
And the personal records of the mobile number’s registration have stoked further controversy.
Mr Were was shot dead by a gun-wielding assailant on a motorcycle as his car pulled up at a red light traffic stop on the city’s Ngong Road at 7.30pm, minutes after he had left Parliament.
Now, detectives from the DCI’s Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau, who have been investigating the murder of the MP, have zeroed in on this mystery call.
The investigators believe that this call, which came only five hours before the MP was shot dead, could help unravel the murder mystery.
Sources familiar with the investigation told Nation that the number was registered only three days before the MP was shot dead and that it only called the MP’s aide.
The source said further scrutiny of the line revealed that it had been registered in the names of a woman from Nyanza, who investigators have now confirmed was long dead when her details were used to register the line.
“We want to know who this caller was and what he wanted,” said an investigator familiar with the matter.
A forensic expert secures the vehicle in which slain Kasipul MP Charles Were was shot dead at close range by two gunmen who were trailing him with a motorbike, outside the Nairobi hospital in Nairobi, on April 30, 2025.
On Wednesday, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, while fielding questions from journalists in Meru, revealed that some of the individuals the DCI were questioning are people close to the MP.
Mr Murkomen did not reveal the identity of these people.
“It involved people who should have ordinarily taken care of the interests of the Member of Parliament. The government is committed to making sure that the perpetrators, some of who have been arrested and others who will be arrested soon, are brought to book,” said Mr Murkomen.
On Tuesday night, detectives raided an apartment in Chokaa in Nairobi and recovered two pistols and nine bullets. They also arrested two men who were found in the house.
In a statement on Wednesday, DCI boss Mohammed Amin said police also found shoes that resemble those worn by one of the suspects caught on CCTV cameras close to the area where the MP was spotted depositing cash at an M-Pesa shop in town.
The recovered weapons have been forwarded to ballistic experts at the DCI headquarters to ascertain if any of them were used in the murder of the MP. During a post-mortem examination, some bullets were recovered from his body. Other spent cartridges had been retrieved from the scene of the murder.
A pistol that had earlier been recovered by the DCI from criminals who have been terrorising residents of Ngong and Nairobi did not match the cartridges found at the scene of the MP’s shooting.
Gynsen Were (left) and Proctor Were, children of the late Kasipul MP Charles Ong'ondo Were at the Consolata Shrine in Nairobi on May 7, 2025 during his Requiem Mass.
Investigators from the DCI Homicide Unit and the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau are investigating the killing of the MP who had publicly announced that his life was in danger.
Last week, Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja said preliminary investigations revealed that the MP was killed by people who were trailing him.
“The nature of this crime appears to be both targeted and predetermined,” the police boss said in a statement issued by spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga.
In February, the MP had expressed concern over growing violence and unrest during public events in his constituency and alleged a plot to kill him. He blamed some forces outside his constituency for the violence and threats to his life.
In a video clip that has since gone viral, the MP said: “When you hear I have been killed, Kasipul will not be the same again. But I know they won’t kill me because I have the Bible in my phone and another one under my pillow.”
Initial reports by police revealed that the attackers had been trailing the MP’s vehicle and that the assailant got off a motorbike and shot him at close range at the traffic lights stop.
Kasipul MP Ong'ondo Were was shot dead in Nairobi on April 30, 2025.
The murder of the MP came only four days after the brutal attack of an MCA from his constituency.
Mr Vickins Bondo, the West Kasipul MCA, sustained head injuries after a night attack by unknown armed men in Lucky Summer, Nairobi.
The Nation confirmed that the matter had not been reported to either Kasarani Police Station or Starehe Police Station, which border the area where the incident occurred.
A family source told the Nation they believe Mr Bondo could have been targeted to derail him from pursuing investigations into the death of his father – a police officer who died in mysterious circumstances in Nairobi on February 7.
Chief Inspector Nicholas Aguk Oballa, then the Embakasi Police Station traffic boss, was killed in a hit-and-run incident.
In an earlier interview with the Nation, Mr Bondo had said the family believed there was foul play in the death of his father. According to the family, Aguk was knocked down by a motorist as he was ushering a presidential convoy into the VIP wing of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on February 7.
Investigations into his death have since been taken over by homicide detectives after traffic investigators in Embakasi failed to trace the vehicle that hit Aguk.
