NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 4 – The National Police Service (NPS) has denied reports of a cover up in regards to a road accident involving the son of Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai which claimed the lives of two riders along Nairobi’s southern bypass on Thursday.
Nairobi Area Traffic police boss Joshua Omukata said Saturday that the driver, David Mwendwa, lost control of the vehicle before veering off the road knocking a pedestrian who was seriously injured and hitting two motorbike riders who died on the spot.
“This accident has brought a lot of speculations that the police are hiding the facts about the accident which of course is not the true position of the matter the way it is. The true position is that indeed the accident occurred whereby a car lost control after knocking a pedestrian,” he said.
Questions emerged over the manner in which the police handled the matter after it turned out the incident had not been booked on the Occurrence Book as is tradition with traffic accidents.
Omukata however said the police did not find the driver at the scene. He said officers who responded to the crash towed the vehicle to the police station and dropped the bodies of the victims at Nairobi’s City Mortuary.
He stated that they immediately commenced investigations into the matter to piece together what transpired.
“Yesterday (Friday) in the afternoon the driver of the same car turned up at Langata Police Station and we recorded his statements,” he said.
“I would want to say that this is an accident, a senior officer that they are referring to, is absolutely not directly or indirectly interfering with any process of investigation of this case. That is quite a separate issue, and we are treating this as a normal accident,” Omukata said.
He also dismissed claims that the driver was drunk at the time of the incident as unverifiable.
“In this case to us we would say that just was just a perception and we have not yet ascertained that the driver was drunk. To go about a driver who is perceived to be drunk, first of all we must have a certification from the doctor to ascertain that this person was drunk. But at this stage so far, we do not have that evidence of drunkenness,” he said.
He stated that once police are done collecting crucial evidence regarding the accident, they will submit the file to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice.
The suspect was released on a cash bail of Sh20,000 pending the completion of the investigations.
Omukata called on the pedestrians and motorists to be cautious on the road during the festive season.
He noted that in the past years, during the festive months, the country has been experiencing an upsurge in accidents on the roads.
The traffic police boss pointed that since the beginning of the month of December, the city had witnessed four fatal accidents.
“The latest and very sad is yesterday (Friday) whereby one of our police officers, a very dedicated and a hardworking police officer, was hit by a speeding public service vehicle along Valley Road killing the officer on the spot, it is vey unfortunate. We are really taking this opportunity to join the family and friends of this officer during this hard time,” Omukata said.
He added that police are currently holding the vehicle involved pointing out that they have launched a manhunt for the driver who escaped following the accident.
