Student charged over Facebook post on Mwau

By WAMBUI NDONGA | May 20, 2013

Harun Mwau was the MP for Kilome in the 10th Parliament. Photo/ FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 20- A university student has been charged for allegedly sending a Facebook message to business tycoon Harun Mwau linking him to the deaths of former Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and his assistant Orwa Ojode.

Stephen Muriuki Wanuku, who accused Mwau of orchestrating the deaths, appeared before Nairobi Chief Magistrate Waweru Kiarie.

According to police, Muriuki posted the offending message a short while after the deaths of the two leaders on June 10 last year.

“You drug lord God will punish you for what you did. Do you think if you are rich you can just kill people? You killed Saitoti, Ojode and four innocent lives. May you rot in hell,” Wanuku is accused of posting.

Wanuku however denied the charge and was released on a Sh30,000 cash bail.

There has been a rise in the number of bloggers taken to court over posts that are deemed offensive including Dennis Ole Itumbi and Robert Alai.

While Itumbi has in the past been accused of hacking into private data, Alai has been accused of posting offensive messages that flouted the Kenya Information and Communication Act.

Ojode and Saitoti died on June 10 last year and several theories on their death emerged.

Members of the 10th Parliament at the time made sensational claims surrounding their deaths indicating claiming that they did not happen by chance.

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has at the time also called for speedy investigations into the death noting that there had been so many high profile deaths in recent times.

Investigations by a commission looking into the helicopter crash that killed the two politicians and four other Kenyans also called for the urgent establishment of a National Forensic Teaching and Research facility to help handle such issues.

“An opportunity was lost to the commission to determine whether cause of death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning, traumatic injuries, fire injuries or a combination of any of these,” she explained in February this year.

The Kenya Police Air Wing was also faulted with the commission accusing it of having shortcomings in the fields of training, safety management and continued air worthiness checks.

“This could be the reason for the underhand functions of the wing,” argued Rawal.

The report was then forwarded to then President Mwai Kibaki who said that another committee should be formed to implement the findings of the Kalpana Rawal-led team.