By Agwanda Jowi
THE wife of the late Nyanza based freelance journalist Francis Nyaruri who went missing on January 16, 2009 after writing a series of articles for The Weekly Citizen and his bound and decapitated body found in Rachuonyo District thirteen days later,Josephine Kwamboka is appealing for the speedy hearing and conclusion of the case so that the killers of her late husband are brought to book.
The late journalist Francis Nyaruri on duty,to date his killers have not been found in what his close colleagues says is luck of seriousness on the part of the polise.
His rotting body was found at Kodera Forest in Rachuonyo District.
Kwamboka’s plea were echoed by a cross section of journalists from Kisii and Nyanza who says that despite having written concrete statements pointing at the possible suspects, the police who were investigating the matter have not bothered to call them and give evidence in court.
“Seems something does not add up here , the late spoke with me and i even went to his funeral and spoke publicly about his possible killers,i wrote a statement with the then Nyanza Deputy Provincial Criminal Investigations Officer John Maritim in his office,how then is it that since then i have not been called to testify” one Kisumu based journalist lamented.
His counterparts from Kisii also demanded an explanation from the Attorney General Amos Wako saying,either the police wants to cover up the whole thing or there is something happening to suit some quarters.
“Personally, i wrote a statement as the law requires and i have always been told that i will be called to give evidence in court,days have turned to months” lamented a journalist based in Kisii who never wanted his name to be mentioned
Their pleas comes hardly days after Kisumu Resident Judge Justice Joseph Karanja is said to be going out of the station on a transfer.
He told the audience that it was his last day hearing criminal cases and that he could not initiate a new case despite the presence of five witnesses in court.
“They just seem to be playing games,” Nyaruri’s widow, Josephine Kwamboka, told this writer after the hearing.
The same day a key police investigator into the murder, Robert Natwoli, had come to testify, but he left disappointed like Nyaruri’s widow, as the officer who arrested the suspects, Natwoli is a crucial witness, but he has not yet been provided an opportunity to address the court, he told me.
Natwoli said he left the police force this year after facing a series of harassment and intimidation from fellow officers.
Nyaruri’s last article implicated top police officials and the area local authority council in conspiring to defraud the public of millions of shillings through a police housing project and the mismanagement of the LATIF Fund and .
It can be recalled that In 2006, The Weekly Citizen, was raided by police who seized equipment and arrested several journalists, following stories critical of President Mwai Kibaki and the then Narc government.