Itumbi abduction: No arrests amid queries on vehicle’s number plates

The police are yet to make any headway in the underway investigations on the gang of three that allegedly abducted Deputy President William Ruto’s digital communications strategist, Dennis Itumbi, even as the number plates of the car reported to have been used in the kidnapping matched that of a different vehicle.

The police remained mum on the matter with no arrests made yet, as investigations entered the third day.

An official search on the particulars of the white Toyota Premio KBL 455S, which is claimed by Mr Itumbi’s friends to have been used by the kidnappers, shows that the registration belongs to a grey Mitsubishi station wagon belonging to a Mr Kipleting Some Ndalut.

The Nation established that the Mitsubishi vehicle, chassis number 2010MSA2300749, is owned by the chairman of Bomet Travelers sacco, who the police were yet to question by December 26 night.

“He is not even aware of what is happening,” an official of Bomet Travelers Sacco told the Nation yesterday when we asked about the controversy of the number plates in question.

DP Ruto’s political ally, Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wah, claimed the number plates on the Toyota Premio vehicle were a false replica.

“Forget the fake number plates they’re circulating. It is typical of them. Diversionary propaganda using their bloggers as they pursue their murderous deeds. The plates are usually duplicates of other vehicles,” said Mr Ichung’wah in a post on his Facebook page.

State agents and criminals are known to use false number plates whenever they conduct clandestine operations.

There has been raging controversy about what exactly happened on Thursday afternoon to Mr Itumbi, a one-time State House insider whose social media postings contributed to Jubilee’s ride to power before he was kicked out of the president’s communications team.

The exact nature of injuries that Mr Itumbi sustained during his 10-hour ordeal with his abductors is yet to become clear. Initially it was claimed that his left arm and leg were fractured, but now there’s also the information that he contracted pneumonia.

By last evening Mr Itumbi was, according to his friends, still admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Nairobi West Hospital with respiratory complications and pneumonia symptoms said to be linked to his spending several hours in the cold.

His friends, however, said that his health is improving and they hope that he will soon be out of the ICU.

“Doctors are satisfied with his progress. His oxygen levels haven’t stabilised yet but we hope he will be taken to general ward in the next few hours,” his friend and UDA Communications Director Wanjohi Githae told the Nation.

“We have however decided we’re not giving any more statements about his ordeal because everything we say is being countered by our political opponents. Mr Itumbi will speak on his own behalf when he gets better in due course,” said Mr Githae.

Bloggers and politicians allied to the Kieleweke wing of the ruling Jubilee party have been trying to discredit whatever DP Ruto’s allies say happened to Mr Itumbi on Thursday, generating a clash of arguments on social media.

Mr Itumbi is not new to controversy.

His claims that cabinet secretaries had hatched a plot to harm the Deputy President have been the subject of a court case.

In August the blogger claimed that his life was in danger after unknown persons blocked and fired shots at his Mercedes Benz vehicle along the Northern bypass in Nairobi, a claim that the police disputed.

On his current ordeal, Mr Itumbi’s friends and DP Ruto’s political allies claim there was an attempt by unknown people claiming to be medical personnel to gain access to him.

“After an incident earlier today, where a guy purporting to be the family doctor wanted to force himself into the ward, there will be no visitor who will be allowed to see him henceforth,” said Josiah Muriguh, a close friend of Itumbi who was one of the first responders to his alleged abduction on Thursday.

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