Relatives console the family of Dennis Simiyu/CFM
Dennis Simiyu who worked at Technoserve Limited was hijacked and taken to his home at about 9pm.
At the residence, his abductors found his wife and sister in the living room before they told him they had been sent by a Mr Michael to eliminate him.
“We were in the living room watching television, and then we heard the door open and he walked in being pushed by two men… he came and sat next to me as the gunmen took positions,” his sister Judith recounted.
She said one of the assailants then whipped out a pistol and started loading it while saying “Do you know Michael? We have been sent to kill you.”
“The man placed three rounds of ammunition on the table and as he loaded the gun, he told my brother to surrender all the money he had and my brother obliged. He also gave his ATM card and the PIN,” she recounted.
Veronica, the wife to the victim was also ordered to surrender her phone, money and an ATM card together with the PIN.
When journalists visited the home on Wednesday morning, Veronica was too distressed and declined to speak but her sister in-law told us they all complied with the thugs’ demands.
“They took our mobile phones before they went upstairs and came down with other items, including an iron box. They then took a DVD machine as they demanded for more money,” Judith said.
When the thugs were done ransacking the house downstairs, one of them escorted the two women upstairs to find more items.
“Before we could get upstairs, we heard a gunshot and knew something terrible had happened to our brother. When we came downstairs, we found him writhing in pain and bleeding profusely, but they did not allow any of us to assist him,” she added.
She said when her sister in-law wife tried to seal the gunshot wound to stop more bleeding, the thug with the pistol threatened to shoot her.
“He was just there writhing in pain and pleading with us to lift him up but the thugs declined saying… wachana na yeye, huyu ni mwanaume anaweza amka peke yake (leave him alone, he is a man he can lift himself),” she recalled as she described what she termed the worst scenario in her life.
Even as the man cried and moaned they kept telling him “huwezi kufa, wewe ni mwanaume na uko na nguvu” (you cannot die, you are a man and you are strong).
They then warned the two women against screaming and left the house with the goods they had stolen and loaded them onto the deceased’s car and sped off.
That is when his wife went and knocked on a neighbour’s door for help.
“He was taken to hospital but sadly he was pronounced dead on arrival at the Nairobi Hospital,” his sister said.
Dennis Simiyu who worked at Technoserve Limited was hijacked and taken to his home at about 9pm/FILE
Wafula Muyila, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi who is a brother to the deceased said he was telephoned and told that his brother had been shot and drove to the hospital.
“From what I have been told by my sister and sister in-law is that these people made it clear to him that they had been sent by Mike to kill him, we don’t know who that Mike is and that is up to the police to investigate,” he said.
He said he had spoken to his brother at about 3pm on Tuesday and he did not express any fears for his life.
“He called me and we spoke and he told me he was changing jobs beginning next month. We actually spoke for a while because he even told me he had made some payment for a piece of land he had bought. He did not sound worried, that is the last time I spoke to him,” Muyila said.
A guard at the court to where the deceased lived told police he opened the gate for him as usual but he noticed two men in the car.
He told the police he did not detect anything unusual and thought the deceased was accompanied by visitors who later drove out in his car.
Police and the family said two withdrawals were made in Kariobangi hours after the ATM cards were stolen.
By Wednesday afternoon, the vehicle had not been recovered and no arrest had been made.
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