Detectives handling the Kamiti escapees’ case are investigating financial transactions they believe will help unravel the puzzle behind the prison break.
The multi-agency team grilled prison warders who were apprehended after the three terror convicts, Musharaf Abdalla, Mohamed Abdi Abikar and Joseph Juma Odhiambo, escaped from the highly guarded facility.
A money trail was unravelled, with the sleuths stating that they will use all the exhibits gathered to extract information on a network that coordinated the financiers and the prison warders.
Kenyans.co.ke learnt that detectives drawn from the cybercrime unit and those dealing with phone forensics were called to analyse the evidence. The team disclosed that the perpetrators and the prison warders were ultimately connected and motivated by money.
“Escapees were reportedly paid months before the prison break,” a detective privy to the case was divulged.
A confession by one of the convicts on how they bribed the officers also offered the investigators an opportunity to trace the illicit financial flows back to and between the militia believed to be the Al Shabaab and their networks that have infiltrated the prison service.
Mohamed Abdi Abikar, one of the escapees, lamented on how they would have bribed the police reservists and reservists who corned them on Wednesday, November 17 in Kitui County.
“If we had not lost our phones, you would have set us free. You cannot be stronger and wiser than those at Kamiti who aided us to escape. We would have given you lots of money too,” Abdi was quoted by a reservist.
Police are also analysing digital evidence and data from mobile devices seized from the trio. They stated that personal information such as contacts, photos, calendars and notes, SMS and MMS messages would reveal the mystery behind the case.
Seven prison warders who were apprehended in connection with the escape were accused of laxity and aiding and abating a crime.
Lead investigators detailed that CCTV cameras at the prison were either ineffective or switched off on Monday, November 15. Footage from the cameras would have aided the detectives to fix the puzzle behind the case.
Warders who were posted to the watchtowers on the same day were also questioned. Meanwhile, police are still trailing an unidentified motorist who ferried the trio from Kamiti to Machakos, before seeing them off aboard a PSV to Kitui.
