A Bungoma administration police (AP) officer accused of raping and chopping off the arm of a 21-year-old Kibabii University student will spend seven days in police cell as investigations into his alleged involvement in the crimes continue.
Constable Eric Muthama, of Tuuti AP camp in Kanduyi Constituency, was arrested by DCI detectives in Bungoma last Saturday after the female student, said to be his girlfriend, was sexually assaulted and her arm severed from her body early Friday, November 22.
The victim was returning home at around 5am in the company of her female friends after spending Thursday night at an entertainment joint in Bungoma Town, when she was accosted and raped.
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The varsity girl was taken to Bungoma West Hospital for emergency care, and later transferred to St. Luke’s Orthopaedic and Trauma Hospital in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County for advanced medical attention.
The prosecution requested that the suspect be detained for seven days, given detectives were yet to record a statement from the victim.
Bungoma Resident Magistrate Wamboi Githongori granted the prosecution their wish.
The investigating officer, Nicholas Oluoch, requested the court to allow him take DNA samples from the suspect and victim in order to firm up evidence in the case.
Magistrate Githongori directed that Muthama be detained at Bungoma Police Station for the seven days that he will be in custody. Muthama’s request to have the detention period reduced, bore no fruit.
Muthama, who has been an AP officer since 2017, is said have been in a relationship with the victim, and had spent Thursday night together at a Bungoma entertainment joint, before he allegedly released her to go home in the company of her friends.
The suspect, the victim’s friends claim, remained behind drinking alcohol with his buddies.
Bungoma County Police Commander, Mutungi Musyoki, told K24 Digital that a disc jockey (DJ) had, on Thursday night, unsuccessfully made advances at the victim, and it is not yet established whether he has any links to the brutal attack on the woman.
The victim, a Third-Year Bachelor of Science (Renewable Energy and Bio-Fuels Technology) learner, was sexually assaulted by a lone assailant at around 5am 200 meters from her rented house in Kibabii, Bungoma Town.
The vicenarian told K24 Digital that she was heading home with her friends after spending Thursday night at an entertainment joint in Bungoma Town, when the aggressor confronted them. “It was raining heavily,” she said.
Her friends managed to escape, but she did not.
The student said the man raped and, thereafter, severed her left arm from her body. The attacker then tied a barbed wire on the then-bleeding stem of the upper limb.
The victim’s arm was, on Friday at 6am, found wrapped in her bra and thrown on the roof of a house in the neighbourhood.
Zaituni Shaban, a Kibabii resident, who first spotted the arm, told K24 Digital, that her husband reported the shocking discovery to police, who arrived and took the arm with them.
“At 5am, we heard a woman screaming for help, but my husband and I feared responding to the distress call. Later, 6am, I went out of the house, and when I looked on a neighbour’s roof, I saw something that resembles a human being’s arm wrapped in a bra, and thrown there. When the arm was removed from the roof by police, we confirmed that it belonged to a human being,” said Zaituni, adding: “We later learnt that the limb was that of a neighbour, a Third-Year student at Kibabii University.”
The victim, who hails from Kirinyaga County, was on Friday morning taken to the Bungoma West Hospital in critical condition, and, a day later, transferred to St. Luke’s Orthopaedic and Trauma Hospital in Eldoret.
Dr. Martin Mbati of the Bungoma West Hospital told K24 Digital that they received the victim while she was unconscious.
“The lady’s left arm was completely severed from her body. She had lost a lot of blood,” said Dr. Mbati.
“Her assailant did not only cut her arm, but also raped her,” said the doctor, who revealed that it will be impossible to reattach the victim’s arm.
“She is now in a stable condition, and we thank God we had a unit of her blood group in the bank,” said Dr. Mbati.
The woman’s attack came on the back of increased insecurity in Kibabii, with residents claiming that at least six women, a majority of them being university students, have been raped by unknown people in the last three months.
“Sexual abuse of women in Kibabii has been rampant of late. The last three months have been horrible,” said Zaituni, a Kibabii inhabitant.
