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Slain businessman Bashir was a ‘man of means’


Slain American-Somali Bashir Mohammed Mohamud was only been a man of means but also someone who wielded strong influence in the corporate and political fields in Kenya.

Mohammed was found dead earlier this week, days after he was reported missing.

His family has since appealed to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noor Haji to launch an inquest into his disappearance and murder.

What’s not in question is that in the last days of his life, Bashir owned a multi-billion shilling business empire in Nairobi and Mogadishu under the flagship Infinity Development Construction Company based in Nairobi.

The governments of Kenya and Somalia were his main business partners.

He was the contractor behind the newly built Uhuru Market Complex in Kisumu city estimated to be worth Sh700 million.

The market is set to be commissioned by President Uhuru Kenyatta in the coming days.

The 36-year old businessman also managed to convince the government of Kenya to award him a contract to upgrade an informal settlement in Eldoret worth Sh743 million in 2018.

In his native Somalia, Bashir won a tender from the United Nations to construct a children’s village in Mogadishu, Somalia, valued at about Sh200 million.

In 2020, Infinity Constructions was again contracted by the United Nations to undertake the construction of the Mogadishu Prisons Complex in Somalia valued at about Sh150 million.

Bashir also won a tender from the Kenyan government for the modern housing project at Mukuru in Nairobi, but this was contested, and later arbitrated by the Public Procurement and Administration Board.

An autopsy report by the Kenyan government indicates he died through bare hand strangulation.

His body reportedly also had burns and trauma on the head consistent with being hit by a blunt object, and his toenails were also plucked out.

“The family of the deceased is of the view that in addition to the current ongoing investigations being conducted by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, it is necessary for your office to sanction an independent fact-finding process to run concurrently,” reads the letter to the ODPP from the deceased’s family lawyer Charles Madowo.

Madowo also questioned why it took police six days to call the family to identify the body of Bashir positively, opted to get fingerprints of his body without his family, and why they called the family after they’d identified him.