DCI Kinoti demands apology, wants Senator Malala charged over assassination claims

Director of Criminal investigations (DCI) George Kinoti is now demanding an apology from Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala over allegations that there was a hit squad in the directorate to eliminate him.

Appearing before a joint Senate Committee session, Kinoti told the senators that after investigations, the allegations by Malala have turned out to be “untrue, malicious, false and ill intended” further calling on the committee to order that the Senator be charged for giving false information.

“… based on evidence on record we find that allegations by Senator Cleophas Wakhungu Malala are untrue, malicious, false and ill intended and therefore urge this committee to order the author of these allegations be charged with the offence of giving false information,” said Kinoti.

DCI George Kinoti: Allegations by Malala are false & ill-intended…we urge this committee to order the author of these allegations be charged. These allegations impacted on character assassination of members of the Special Service Unit…the author should apologise to the unit pic.twitter.com/f5hfKsRgaV

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 23, 2020

The DCI told the members that all information given by Malala did not check out, adding that the Senator failed to give the investigating officers phone numbers or even photos of the alleged members of the hit squad which he earlier claimed to have.

However, members of the joint committee investigating the arrest of three Senators on the eve of voting for a third basis revenue sharing formula said they didn’t expect any other outcome as the suspects were investigating themselves.

“The complexity of this investigation is that the accused people are the police service, and it’s the same service we are trying to rely on to give us information to enable us unravel the mystery about this story, and it would be foolish of the police service to give us information that will be self-incriminating. It will be unfair to expect that,” said Meru Senator Mithika Linturi.

Kinoti and Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai rejected allegations that they could be involved in a cover up, insisting they have tabled facts according to investigations.

The two were also pressed to explain why the three Senators were violently arrested and yet they were not charged.

Mutyambai told the Committee that Senators Lagat and Lelegwe were under investigations in their counties for a serious crime of incitement and that Malala had ignored police summons after he breached the health protocols to combat spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But we are developing a liaison team with parliament to establish a decent way of dealing with Honorable members, on that we took responsibility, we don’t need to belabor that, there was an error,” said the police IG.