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‘Killer’ policeman to face murder for shooting Egerton students


A Police officer attached to Central Police Station and who is alleged to have shot dead two Egerton University students is set to face murder charges.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) has asked the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge Constable Patrick Thuranira with the deaths of Dennis Ongwae Magomere and Felix Ngaywa Nyagena.

The two students were shot at the globe cinema roundabout in Nairobi  on November 7, 2014 after they were suspected of being muggers.

ANTI-MUGGING UNIT

“The investigation revealed that the two were executed by Police Constable Patrick Thuranira, a police officer based at Central Police Station and attached to the anti-mugging unit,” a statement from Ipoa indicated.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko reviewed the investigations and has directed that the officer be charged with two counts of murder.

Ipoa stated that investigations pointed that the officer was off duty on that day and not in uniform but was armed with a pistol which he used to kill the two students.

“Investigators found that the two students had travelled from Egerton University, Njoro Campus, to Nairobi on the day they were killed. They were accompanied by a friend and had travelled to Nairobi to follow up on their Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) loans at Anniversary Towers.

“The two students visited Anniversary Towers and later visited relatives within Nairobi. They were leaving the Nairobi CBD to a relative’s house in Mathare North when they encountered Constable Thuranira at about 9.40 pm,” Ipoa stated

FAMILIES IN DISTRESS

The statement further states that despite the two students having their national and university identification documents on them when they were shot, the police labelled their bodies as unidentified in police and mortuary records and failed to disclose to their frantic families the truth about the incident.

“The families of the two students remained in distress for two weeks searching for their sons,” Ipoa stated in the statement signed by the Public Relations officer, Dennis Oketch.

Ipoa, formed in 2012 to receive and investigate complaints from the public against the police, forwarded the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions with a recommendation that Police Constable Patrick Thuranira be charged with murder.

Felix Magomere and Dennis Nyangina Ongwae were second year students studying Biochemistry. The bodies were taken to the mortuary by a police vehicle, GKA462G at around 1:00am, six hours after the shooting.