NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 25 – Police have been given five more days by a Kisumu Court to detain Ugandan Niwagira Ronald Mwine Fred alias Ronnie Santos for five more days pending completion of investigations after he was arrested on Sunday on allegations of match fixing.
The Ugandan appeared before Senior Magistrate Wilfrida Kemunto on Monday morning where he was set to answer to corruption charges after allegedly trying to bribe Western Stima players to influence the result of their match against KCB.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) objected to the idea of releasing him on bond with the investigating officer saying he is a flight risk and had initially asked for a seven-day window to compete their investigations.
The investigating officer had sworn an affidavit stating the extent of the match fixing menace, noting it had potential to derail football development in the country and he needed time to dig into the roots of the vice.
Mwine was arrested by detectives who posed as players on Sunday as he trapped after an initial meeting with Stima chair Laban Jobita at a Kisumu Hotel.
The Ugandan football agent had allegedly asked Jobita of his assistance to influence some players to lose their match against KCB which had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Nakuru’s Afraha Stadium.
According to the police report, Jobita had promised Mwine to go talk to the players and instead swung to the police who devised the plan to net the agent. On his arrest, it was also established that his immigration status in the country had expired.
He had promised to pay the players Sh550,000 if they lost the game and had also allegedly offered Sh10,000 during the meeting where he was arrested as ‘lunch’.
-Additional reporting by Joe Ojwang’
