Shocking Details About Francis Gaitho’s Arrest Emerge
Key takeaways
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- Francis Gaitho is a well-known Kenyan blogger with significant influence on X, largely due to his outspoken criticism of government repression.
- His criticism of the regime and members of the political class has made him the subject of various arrests by law enforcement officers.
- The latest Gaitho arrest was conducted on Tuesday evening inside the upmarket Westlands neighborhood of Nairobi.
- Mr. Gaitho was picked up in an apartment block just after 8 PM by officers believed to be from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
- His whereabouts largely remained unknown up to Thursday afternoon when his family put out a statement.
- According to the statement, Francis Gaitho was later presented to Milimani Law Courts on charges of skipping court mentions.
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Gaitho arrested in an evening raid after using his SIM card for 2 minutes
A statement from Francis Gaitho’s family released on Thursday gave a blow-by-blow account of the events of Tuesday evening when the blogger was arrested.
While CCTV footage of the arrest went viral on social media, intricate details on how the operation unfolded remained scanty.
According to the family, police stormed his residential compound before forcing the caretaker to show them Francis Gaitho’s house.
The caretaker led them upstairs to Gaitho’s door which was momentarily broken as the team closed in on the blogger.
“They broke down his door padlock with a vehicle wheel-spanner, brutally assaulted Francis Gaitho with kicks and blows, before finally handcuffing him. They also forcefully took two mobile phones and one laptop,” said the family in a press statement.
The floor cameras show the officers making entry before emerging a few minutes later with the blogger in handcuffs.
Questions quickly emerged about how the police were able to pinpoint Gaitho’s location because he had been carefully switching residences since the demonstrations.
Francis was among the influential figures arrested in connection with the recent protests, making him adopt a cautious approach to evading arrest.
The police, however, once again showed their prowess in tracking persons of interest, as they arrested him just minutes after he used his SIM Card.
“But on that material day, he needed to make a payment to a vendor which only prompts Safaricom MPesa numbers. He quickly inserted his Safaricom SIM card for two minutes to effect the transaction and removed it,” says the family statement.
Gaitho spends night at Kamukunji Police station
Gaitho’s arrest was successful thanks to the sleek efforts of an unidentified woman who visited the apartment ahead of the police.
According to the family statement, this lady posed as a potential tenant searching for a house, while gathering crucial information that confirmed Gaitho’s location to the police.
In admirable anticipation, Gaitho managed to alert his family and the public that he had been surrounded by police.
The padlock at his door bought him valuable time to reach out as the hostile team struggled to break it down.
Gaitho was led to one of the vehicles parked in the compound before being driven to the dreaded Kamukunji Police Station in downtown Nairobi.
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As Kenyans called on the authorities to produce him, Gaitho was taken to Milimani Law Courts where he was charged with skipping court mentions.
The family has clarified the matter, explaining that this had been caused by miscommunication on the part of his lawyers.
His bond terms were reinstated and arrest warrants canceled by the court after it heard arguments presented by veteran lawyer John Khaminwa.
The blogger couldn’t get online to update his supporters since his all his devices have been reportedly seized by police in separate arrests.
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