Another police officer accused of killing the mastermind of the September 2019 Ksh74million Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) heist Wycliff Vincent Oduor has surrendered.
Constable James Njuguna Ngige of Katwana police station on Tuesday evening June 14, 2022, surrendered to officers at Capitol Hill police station and is expected to be charged in court Wednesday.
Ngige is to be charged alongside his four former colleagues who were on June 6 charged with the murder after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) approved the charges.
His former colleagues at Kayole police station - Corporal Joseph Ojode Obambo, Corporal Charles Kirimi, Constable Bashir Ali and Constable Henry Mutai - were arrested on June 5 for killing Owuor on March 25, 2020.
Constable Ngige was however not arrested then because he could not be traced.
StanChart heist mastermind's death puzzle
Though the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said Oduor was gunned down in 'a fierce shootout between a 3-man gang of robbery with violence suspects and detectives', an independent probe has proved otherwise.
In a letter dated May 18 and addressed to the Deputy Inspector General of Kenya Police, the DPP said there was sufficient evidence that the four officers murdered Owuor and directed that they be arrested and charged with murder.
Immediately Owuor was shot, his lawyer Cliff Ombeta challenged the DCI and posted a video showing how the officers shot the unarmed suspect.
“Wycliff Vincent Oduor was shot in cold blood by officers in Probox KCT 818W. He tried to plead and even went into a barber shop and was removed from there and shot outside,” Ombeta said then.
The DCI in their Twitter account had also said that Owuor was in the company of other robbers at the Kayole junction and defied orders to surrender, engaging the officers in a fire exchange.
“A pistol and a kitchen knife were recovered from the slain suspect. Wycliff Oduor aka 'Vinii' has been out on a Ksh500,000 bond after his arraignment following the heist,” the DCI said in 2020.
Police claimed Oduor had been robbing members of the public at the Kayole junction while accompanied by two other men, and that a team of detectives from Kayole DCI who responded to a distress call managed to shoot Oduor.
Oduor was among the suspects charged with the StanChart heist and was released on a cash bail of Ksh500,000 by Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi.
They were accused of robbery with violence after they allegedly robbed G4S staff of the Ksh74 million and 38 cassettes, 13 purge bins and 13 canvas bags, totalling Sh75.9 million.
