Dennis Itumbi breaks ranks with Jubilee bloggers on Walter Menya’s arrest
State House Director of Digital Communications Dennis Itumbi has faulted the leaking of arrest photos of journalist Walter Menya to pro-Jubilee bloggers.
Itumbi said the sharing of photos taken inside the CID headquarters, a protected area where photography is restricted, made the arrest look staged.
“That alone trivializes the arrest and the accusation. The case will be decided on FACTS and EVIDENCE….but if the perception is that it was a scripted narrative that must be pointed out,” he wrote.
Itumbi expressed hope that Menya will triumph even as prosecution on Monday filed a miscellaneous application against the journalist.
THREE MORE DAYS
In the application, police want to detain Menya at Muthaiga Police Station for three more days.
“This is now a matter between defence lawyers and the prosecution – but once there is such reasonable doubt involving a fine writer such as Walter Menya, it is fair to hope that he will triumph,” Itumbi wrote.
Lawyer James Orengo and former LSK chief executive Apollo Mboya on Monday told the court that they not been served and the magistrate ordered prosecution to serve the defence and return at 2:30pm.
Police locked up Mr Menya on Sunday on claims of “soliciting a bribe to write a damaging story.”
He spent the night in cells at an undisclosed police station.
Menya wrote a story in the Sunday Nation this week about the Friends of the Jubilee Foundation, a lobby group through which senior civil servants are illegally participating in the campaigns.