More on Ben Gethi

Ben Gethi was also an explosives expert. Is it a mere coincidence that shortly before JM was murdered in 1975, a bomb went off at the OTC (upcountry bus company then associated with the now defunct Kenya Bus Services -KBS) killing 27eople and maiming many others.

The ridiculous idea here was to link JM to the bomb blast and also link the popular MP to terrorism acts aimed at destabilizing Kenyatta’s government. Indeed it is said that that was the main line of questioning at Kingsway House on that fateful night in March 2nd that JM was taken there.

Even more telling is that after JM’s murder nothing more was heard about the OTC bombing.

After Tom Mboya’s assassination, rumours started doing the rounds in Nairobi that he had been planning to assassinate President Kenyatta and that the same person sent to kill Kenyatta was sent back to finish off Mboya. Few believed the authenticity of this rumour but no prizes for guessing where it may have originated from.

Another mysterious bomb went off at the Norfolk Hotel in on New year’s eve, 1980, killing 27 people, mostly American and British tourists. To date this mystery has also not been solved. Although Gethi was by this time police commissioner, it should be noted that he was Israeli-trained and still had very close links with the Israelis. Even more telling is the fact that there was no follow up by the government on this serious incident almost as if the mystery was solved in their book.

Ben Gethi became police commissioner shortly after President Moi took over in 1978. It is useful to take a close look at the circumstance surrounding the man’s appointment.

Then police commissioner Bernard Hinga was summoned to State house by Moi who was upset about a certain security-related issue. It is said that Hinga did not respond to the new president in the same way he used to respond to Kenyatta. You did not answer back to Kenyatta. Yet Hinga took time to disagree with what the president was saying and to defend himself vigorously. A visisbly annoyed Moi ordered him back to his office. However, when Hinga entered his office at Vigilance house, he found Ben Gethi seated on his chair. Any other officer, Hinga would have thrown out, but this was Gethi and even Hinga (who was supposed to be his boss) feared him.

The following were Hinga’s exact words:

“What the hell is going on?”

Ben Gethi informed him hat he had just been appointed police commissioner by the President. Hinga pointed out that he had just been to see the president and he hadn’t been told about this new development. Just then the phone rung and Moi personally talked to Hinga asking him to take an early retirement.

Gethi himself was fired shortly after the 1982 coup attempt and was briefly detained without charge. He was released after about one year.

Shortly before his sacking, Raila Odinga says in his biography that he burst into the cells where he was being held looking drunk and eating roasted goat leg. He interrogated Raila and his colleagues and supervised as his GSU officers assaulted them with kicks and blows.

Ben Gethi was quite a character. He would seat at a corner drinking alone for hours on end. It was usually a stiff whisky drink. He hardly talked and it was clear that the man was being haunted by ghosts from his past.

It is said that if you pour innocent blood, there is no way, you will not be haunted by those you have murder in cold blood. If this is true then it explains Gethi’s strange behavior and character.

Gethi died in 1994 of some illness (probably drunk himself to death) and took with him enough secrets to the grave to write hundreds of best-selling books. This includes inside details of the planning and execution of the mission that assassinated Tom Mboya.

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