Forest Road assault: Police arrest key suspect

Police have arrested Zachariah Nyaora Obadia, a boda boda operator who was identified as the mastermind of a gang that sexually harassed a female motorist in Nairobi a week ago.

Nairobi detectives arrested the suspect on Monday at the Kenya-Tanzania border.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said Mr Obadia was attempting to cross into Tanzania, a week after the uproarious harassment incident that sparked a nationwide crackdown on boda boda operators.

“Obadia, who masterminded the ghastly sexual attack on a woman along Wangari Maathai road, (was) arrested minutes ago at the Kenya-Tanzania border in Sirare,” the DCI said in a statement.

The agency said he had escaped a dragnet in Mukuru Kaiyaba through a sewer duct.

“Since then, he (engaged) detectives in hide-and-seek games until his arrest. Using digital forensics, cybercrime experts at the DCI National Forensic Laboratory had earlier placed him at the scene of the crime scientifically, before launching a manhunt for him,” DCI added.

Mr Obadia had been on the run since the incident, with detectives intensifying the manhunt by deploying teams across the city and to his rural home in Kisii.

Groping her

DCI had placed Mr Obadia at the scene of the crime, and a Nation analysis of the short video footage showing the attack shows a man with a striking resemblance to him yanking open the door to the motorist’s Nissan X-Trail and groping her.

A forensic analysis of the incident last week on Prof Wangari Maathai Road, formerly called Forest Road, showed he was there at the time of the attack, even though he is registered to a boda boda association that operates from Hazina.

The suspect is also said to have been positively identified on the video capturing the sexual assault by his wife and other relatives in his rural home.

A report filed last Friday at the Parklands Police Station shows that a boda boda rider blocked the woman’s car abruptly, forcing her to crash into it and leaving the rider with a broken leg.

The motorist stopped a few metres from the scene but was mobbed by a group of riders, some of whom stole her mobile phone and cash.
This forced her to take off but she stopped a few metres away.

Screamed in terror

The riders raced after her and blocked her car. They then opened her car door and sexually assaulted her, with some of them robbing her of her personal effects as she screamed in terror.

She was rescued by a traffic police officer, who had been alerted about the incident by other motorists.