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Kenyan narrates carjacking ordeal

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 22 – A banker who escaped death narrowly after a carjacking that ended in a shootout with police on Nairobi’s Waiyaki Way on Monday morning says he is too lucky to be alive.

George Kigio said he had been locked in the trunk of his own car for almost four hours before the vehicle overturned near Kabete Police station where three gangsters were subsequently shot and killed.

“They (gangsters) were moving at very high speed. I had a feeling the one who was driving never knew how to drive because I could feel the way he was engaging the wrong gears,” he said.

Mr Kigio who is also a pastor at a local church sustained a minor fracture on his right leg after he was catapulted from the trunk of his saloon car when it overturned less than 200 metres from Kabete police station.

“At first, I heard them argue in the car, they were arguing so loudly and suddenly I heard a very loud bang, like the vehicle hit something, the next thing was the vehicle rolling before I was thrown out on impact,” he said.

“And within minutes, police were at the scene trying to assist them get out of the vehicle, and that is when the gunmen started shooting at them (police).  The three were all felled there and then, but it was like they knew the owner was in the car because one of the officers immediately spotted me and asked if I was George,” he added.

Capital News caught up with the father of two at his Kinoo home where he was having breakfast after arriving from the MP Shah Hospital.

“That is the last thing I can remember about that accident, because it is like I went to a stupor immediately after the gunshots. I woke up to find myself lying at a hospital bed at the MP Shah where I had been taken by police officers,” he recalled.

Carjacking drama

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Mr Kigio narrated how he had been waiting for his gate to be opened when three men emerged and pointed what looked like a pistol at him.

“I was so terrified, that I did not even make a single move.  They just opened the car and threw me out and robbed me of everything; my phone, Sh4,000 and my personal documents.  I was then ordered to jump in the trunk and they drove off,” he said.

At some point, he recalled how the gangsters parked the vehicle at what appeared to be a shopping centre because of the loud music and noise from matatu conductors.  They started having a conversation with one of their accomplice who also boarded the vehicle.

“I heard them say, hii fala iko ndani ya boot lakini twende upande huu (this fool is in the trunk but let’s go this way), after driving through a very bumpy road, then they stopped and asked me for my ATM PIN, and I gave them. They were so daring because they were asking me to look at them and demanded to know if I could identify any of them. I told them no,” they said.

“One of them then told me that I was a dead man, before he banged the door of the boot.  I was so terrified and I kept praying.  Shortly after, I heard the vehicle join a highway and it was moving at a very high speed, that is when it overturned,” he recalled.

His wife Grace had no words to describe how shocked she was when she was told by their guard that her husband had been taken away by gangsters.

“I am so happy now. I thank God that he is alive,” she said.

Dozens of curious onlookers and friends of Mr Kigio thronged Kabete Police station to view the wreckage of his car.

Police at the station told Capital News one of the gangsters popularly known as Baite who was killed in the Monday morning incident, was wanted for the killing of nominated PNU Councillor Wilfred Apencha who was killed when those who carjacked him engaged police in a shootout in Kangemi in January.

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