A man suspected by the DCI to be the shooter at Mirema Drive in Roysambu, Nairobi, last Monday has surrendered to the police.
In widely-circulated CCTV footage, a man is seen spraying 40-year-old Samuel Mugo Mugota with bullets. Mugota died on the spot.
The suspect, Dennis Karani Gichuki, was accompanied by his lawyer Samwel Thuku today when he surrendered at the DCI headquarters in Kiambu County.
Last week, DCI had issued a notice saying Karani was suspected of masterminding the daytime shooting of Mugota.
On its official Twitter page, DCI termed Karani as an armed and dangerous man who was suspected to be in possession of a firearm that was snatched from a stupefied police officer in November 2020.
But Karani, while speaking to journalists at the DCI headquarters, denied the accusations saying he did not understand why the police settled on him as the prime suspect.
“I received the news while in a restaurant in Nakuru [County] when a friend told me that I was trending on social media. I was so shocked and wondered why me?” he posed.
Karani acknowledged that he knew the deceased saying they first met at a wedding of a mutual friend in Meru County in 2018. He, however, denied doing any form of business with him.
“Since the wedding, I saw him again in March last year at a hotel opposite Kenyatta Road. Karani did not like hard drinks and so I left him at a car wash as I went into the hotel. By the time I left [the hotel], he had already left the premises.
“I didn’t have his contacts so I’m wondering how I am connected to the murder,” he added.
Karani says he sells cereals for a living.
“I coordinate with brokers from Busia border to bring me soya [beans] which I sell in Nakuru,” he says.
The late Mugota had reportedly dropped a friend at Mirema Drive, when his assailant, who was trailing him in another vehicle, shot him six times at close range.
Mugota, who was on the driver’s seat of his Honda CRV, died on the spot. His attacker, thereafter, sped off.
