The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is at loggerheads with the police over its use of unconventional tactics to entrap officers over corruption allegations.
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Bribery sting blows up in face of EACC sleuths
A ploy by the anti-graft agency to bait a senior detective in Nyeri into accepting a bribe has backfired, turning into a major attempted bribery bust for the police.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is at loggerheads with the police yet again over its use of unconventional tactics to entrap officers over corruption allegations.
In the Mathira case, a land fraud suspect was caught up in the institutional wars between the two investigative agencies.
A cash amount of Sh150,000 is also at the centre of the dramatic dispute, with both EACC and police claiming it as evidence in corruption cases.
EACC claims it is investigating a senior police officer for bribery and wants the money back as it was “treated”. On the other hand, the police maintain they are looking into attempted bribery involving an EACC ‘bait’ and are holding the money as evidence.
Title deed
Police records, seen by the Nation, show that Mr John Kinyua is under investigation for land-related fraud. Investigators allege that he tried to compromise the investigation by bribing his way out of the matter.
“One John Kinyua is an accused in a case under investigation of acquiring a title deed in order to defraud” his uncle of a parcel of land,” the police report says.
Mr Kinyua reportedly visited the deputy sub-county DCI boss for Mathira West, Obed Mulunga, at his office in Kiamachimbi on Wednesday afternoon with the intention of bribing him to kill the case against him.
Mr Mulunga was with two other officers from the Karatina Police Station and the accused allegedly requested to see the DCI boss privately.
“The two officers then left for Karatina where they reside. Immediately they left, John Kinyua stood up and told Mr Mulunga that he had come with Sh200,000 to be assisted not to be taken to court for the above case,” the report says.
The DCI boss then called back the two officers as soon as the offer was made and Mr Kinyua was arrested for the offence of attempting to bribe a state officer. The officers also seized Sh150,000 in cash from the suspect. But there is more.
The Nation has since learned that the story goes deeper than the police report says and that a bigger mission was in motion.
EACC has admitted that its agents had used the civilian in an attempt to catch the senior officer red-handed receiving a bribe. It backfired.
Central Regional EACC boss Charles Rasugu told the Nation that Mr Kinyua had reported to them that the officer had demanded a Sh200,000 bribe to bury the fraud case against him.
“We were investigating a case where a DCI officer for Mathira West was demanding a bribe to assist the complainant not to be charged in court. We were in the process of investigations where we intended to arrest the officer taking the money,” Mr Rasugu said.
But in an interesting turn of events, the police boss somehow got wind of EACC’s plot, came up with a counter-plot and arrested the civilian.
Land case
EACC detectives had been posing as civilians who had gone to the DCI office to report another land case. When the moment came for them to pounce on the DCI boss, he was already strides ahead of them and had arrested their bait.
At some point, the detective tried to have on record as witnesses to the attempted bribery the very EACC officers who were meant to arrest him.
“As the inventory was being prepared, the two witnesses were asked to produce their IDs so as to be used in the inventory and it is when one of them said they were officers,” the police report says.
“They refused to produce their IDs and made calls where other people came and claimed they were colleagues from EACC Nyeri.”
The EACC now maintains the DCI boss is still under investigation for demanding a bribe. On the other hand, police are investigating the EACC bait for attempting to bribe the police boss.
