MRS KAUNYA IN DANGER

The wife of Nyanza deputy Provincial Commissioner Oku Kaunya says her life is in danger.

Mrs Millicent Kaunya said she had received two phone calls from strange people warning her to “stop talking” about her husband or she would be killed.

“I’m leaving in fear, the last time I talked to you journalists, I received a phone call and the caller warned me that he would take my head,” Mrs Kaunya told Nation on Sunday.

She had been given similar threats when she went public about her husband’s disappearance last month.

She said that she had reported the death threats to the police on both occasions but no action had been taken.

“I have reported these threats but no action is forthcoming from them, I don’t want to die because my children are still small,” Mrs Kaunya said.

The deputy PC, who is ranked by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) as a 'high profile witness’ in case of any trials connected to the post-election violence was reported by his wife to have been missing for three days on March 19.

He, however, surfaced the next day in Kakamega town and claimed that he was in an area in Vihiga District where he couldn’t make contact with his family as there was no phone network.

Mr Kaunya left the country on April 11 after he attempted to meet a senior government official without success.

On Sunday, his wife maintained that her husband was in Germany on holiday and would be back in two weeks’ time.

“You know he is on leave and when someone is on leave, he can decide where to go for holiday. But I can assure you he will be back in two weeks’ time because his leave will have come to an end,” she said.

She denied reports that her husband had been spirited out of the country through Uganda, saying she had personally escorted the provincial administrator to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to board a plane to Germany.

“I personally escorted him to the airport and bid him farewell as he boarded a Swiss Air flight to Germany, check with the airline to prove this,” she stated.

But reliable sources have told Nation that Mr Kaunya, the former commandant of the Administration Police Training College, have confirmed that the former top AP official fled the country fearing for his life.

Kaunya is among witnesses that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has ranked as “a high profile witness”.

A consortium of non-governmental organisations is protecting at least 11 key witnesses who have damning information on how the violence was planned and executed.

A close friend of Kaunya is reported to have said the former AP boss opted to flee soon after his request to leave the country briefly was turned down by a highly placed official in the Office of the President.

The source, who served with the former commandant when he was a district officer, said Kaunya made at least four visits to the Office of the President.

Mr Kaunya is said to have sought the assistance of at least two foreign missions in Nairobi after sensing that his life was in danger.

The former AP boss’ troubles are related to what he may know about the suspected role of the force in the immediate pre- and post-election period.

According to the Waki report, the AP training college, headed then by Kaunya, was a central cog in the chain of events leading to the crisis in which more than 1,300 Kenyans were killed and 650,000 others were displaced.

It said 1,600 officers were sent to the college for “special training” so that they could act as election agents for PNU.

After the elections, Kaunya was transferred to the National Defence College on study leave and then re-deployed to Nyanza as a deputy PC.