Seven Prison Warden at Kamiti Maximum Prison have been arrested in connection with the yet to be established prison break involving three terror convicts.
The three escapees are; Musharraf Abdalla Akhulunga also known as Zarkarawi, Mohammed Ali Abikar and Joseph Juma Odhiambo alias Yusuf.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi has blamed laxity and incompetence vowing that more arrests and prosecutions will follow after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations moved in to investigate the prison break.
“We will not only go the direction investigations will point us but we will act
resolutely to ensure this kind of recklessness does not happen again because it exposes our people. Definitely, there is a certain level of irresponsibility we have to deal with in this particular case,” read part of the statement.
The CS who led a senior security team to Kamiti prison last evening further announced a massive manhunt involving specialized teams has been launched across the country for the three terror suspects.
He revealed that their extensive tour of Kamiti including Block A 6 where the trio had been held did not appear to support the official version of escape given by the prisons’ managers.
“We have gone to the place where the escape allegedly happened, and we have formed certain opinions. We don’t want to discuss that because we don’t want to interfere with the work that the DCI is doing,” he said.
The CS has said the Government will protect whistle-blowers who will volunteer
information that could lead to the rearresting of the prisoners who are described as dangerous with the manhunt teams especially paying attention to the country’s borders and exit points.
“We are all mobilized and we have sent messages across the country and all exit and possible movement points out of the country. We are going to conduct a massive manhunt for those three. They are dangerous criminals and we have to get them. And we are going to get them,” he said
However, the CS urged Kenyans not to panic over the latest mysterious escape of dangerous prisoners saying security teams were on high alert and had managed to pre-empt many of the planned terror attacks.
The CS was flanked by principal secretaries Karaja Kibicho (Interior) and Zeynab Mohammed (Correctional Services), Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai, DCI boss George Kinoti, and Commissioner General of Police Wycliffe Ogallo.
Abikar was charged and convicted in 2019 over his links to Al-Shabaab and for abetting the Garissa University attack of April 2015 that left 148 people dead while Odhiambo was arrested in 2019 for trying to join the Somali terror group.
Akhulunga was arrested in 2012 over a foiled attack on Kenya’s parliament
and charged with possessing explosives, ammunition and firearms.
The DCI has placed a Sh60 million bounty on their recapture.
