Next comes a tour of the Nakumatt store. It’s bare except for a scorched fire extinguisher that hangs forlornly on one of the walls.
Only holes mark where the elephant synonymous with their brand was perched and no counters line the main entrance to the store.
But the real damage was done outside where their loading bay stood, below where their store was and the floor above it where a parking area stood.
“That’s where the children’s cooking competition was taking place,” the head of Westgate security and prosecution witness number four, Paul Bunzi, told Ochenja as they looked down the gaping hole that was the parking area and at the bottom of which a tractor now sits.
Now in the hole ourselves, we try not to cut ourselves on the broken glass that litters the loading bay as we head back out to the basement parking entrance where Bunzi shows us how he evaded the bullets of the terrorists. [More on that story here]
“I slipped under a car that was parked right here,” he tells Ochenja as he stands just a few metres from the security check-point.
“And as they walked up the drive I crawled from under the car and behind these flower bushes. I’m lucky I’m not very big,” the small framed Bunzi says as he manages to crack a smile.
Patrick Otwane hid a few metres away in a trench; the same trench it was first speculated some terrorists could have escaped through.
“There was nothing to those stories,” Bunzi is quick to assure but the water inlet at the end of the trench doesn’t do much to support his case.
Through it all, Abdi, Omar, Mohamed and Mustafah remain mum except for the occasional joke shared with the prisons officers who surround them.
“Excuse me,” I remember saying to one of them as I pushed to catch what Bunzi was saying to the good magistrate.
When I realised who I was pushing, I turned back and he flashed me a smile donned in the Arsenal shirt I’ve seen him wear behind the dock for all four days of his trial so far.
“They’ve never been here,” one of their lawyers Mbugua Mureithi tells me, “one of them was even arrested from a refugee camp. They’re amused to see the place they’re being accused of conspiring to attack.”
Tour over, Ochenja who says he’s never been here either seems satisfied, “if you have any additional questions now that you’ve seen the crime scene you’re free to recall any of the witnesses who’ve testified so far to the stand,” he reminds the learned friends before driving off in his four wheel drive.
Mureithi who remains behind to confer with his client then reveals that once trial resumes on Monday, he and his colleagues will be reapplying for the release of the four accused on bail.
“It was good to see the areas that the witnesses are mentioning and to generally get a feel of the unfortunate destruction that happened here,” he concludes.
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