Stephen Muiruri's Statement On His Arrest

Stephen Muiruri
P.O Box 872-00200
Nairobi.

Tel. 0736558489

March 17, 2007

To all concerned

RE: ARREST AND THREATS ON MY LIFE
I have decided to make a personal statement regarding the police raid at my private business and my arrest on March 14, 2007, through the instigation of top managers at Nation Media Group. I have decided to make this issue public for the sake of my safety and that of my family.

From the onset, I wish to state that I have no intentions to jeopardise the on-going high-level investigations by detectives from CID Headquarters in Nairobi regarding to whether I was part of the authors of the anonymous letters that have been circulating in the internet on NMG managers alleged to be involved in a string of sex affairs with junior staff.

At around 11 am on March 14, 2007, I was in my office in Parklands in Nairobi , from where I operate a tours and a safaris company, when Nation’s Security Manager, Mr Sam Koskei, burst into my office accompanied by about 15 detectives from CID Headquarters. From the onset, the head of the squad told me that I was under arrest. My staff and I were ordered to stop what we were doing and not to make any movement. The squad did not have a search warrant. Two of my clients who had come to sell a new internet concept they were marketing in Parklands area were caught in the drama, but they were released after being detained for two hours in my offices.

The detectives ransacked my offices for about two hours, shifting through drawers, cabinets and documents. They dismantled my computer and took it away. They also carried the business licences and a load of documents, including my letter of resignation from Nation Media Group. The letter was dated February 2, 2007. Up to now, the items seized are still being detained at CID Headquarters. The search was supervised and co-ordinated by Mr Koskei. Mr Koskei kept threatening and intimidating me.

While the search was going on, I called Mr Maina Kiai, the chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, who happened to be out of country but I got him on his roaming telephone line. He immediately sent four of his top officers to my office. Mr Kiai’s team also mobilised journalists from all media houses, Nation included. However, only Capital FM went on air with the story of the raid and my arrest. The People Daily and the Kenya Times carried my story the next day. The other media houses, Nation included, gave the story a black out. The information I have is that the Nation reporter who had come to cover my arrest did a story but Mr Joseph Odindo, the Group Managing Editor, ordered for the story to be killed.

After the officers were through with the search at around 1pm, they whisked me to CID Headquarters and Mr Koskei followed us there in his vehicle. When we reached CID Headquarters, I was being treated like one of Kenya ’s most wanted criminal. I was even followed to the toilet by a police officer.

Mr Koskei only left CID Headquarters after the detectives told him his job was done. It was after Mr Koskei left that the officers relaxed and started treating me well. They could allow me to meet and consult Mr Njonjo Mue, a legal counsel from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and other officials from the Commission.

I then called my lawyer, Mr Paul Muite. Mr Muite held talks with senior detectives at CID Headquarters before he came to see me in the office I was being detained. The detectives who were holding me were courteous and they candidly told me that they arrested me on instigation of senior managers from Nation Media Group. I thank the detectives for treating me well and refusing to dance to the tune of Mr Koskei and other senior Nation managers who masterminded my arrest.

After Mr Muite held talks with senior detectives, a charge was hurriedly drafted. It stated that at 9.07pm on February 27, at my office in Parklands, I wrote and circulated an email alleging that NMG CEO, Mr Linus Gitahi, was having an affair with a certain Miss Planet and that I emailed the alleged mail to Mr Gitahi and Nation’s newsdesk from my office. The charge stated that I contravene the Communication Commission of Kenya Act by circulating offensive material in the internet. The detectives claimed they had traced the email had come from my office.

As stated above, I wish not to jeopardise the on-going police investigations. But I can state without fear of contradiction that the charge was tramped up and there is absolutely no truth in the allegations. On the day I’m alleged to have committed the office, I left my office around 4pm after I was called by my wife to inform me that our son was unwell. I asked her to take the first available matatu and I told her I would join them at Gertrude Children’s Hospital in Muthaiga. I immediately took a taxi along Ojijo road in Parklands and I linked up with my wife and son at the hospital. We stayed at the hospital until around 8.30pm and then took a taxi that dropped us at my home in Kasarani. At no time did I go back to office that day. My staff called me at 5pm and told me they had closed the office and were leaving for home. I did not go to the office the next day because, like my son, I was suffering from a bad sour throat. And my son too did not go to school on February 28 because he was going back to hospital for a second injection. I returned to my office on March 1, 2007. I have all the hospital documents and a list of people, including doctors and nurses, whom I met at the hospital. It is, therefore, outrageous for anyone to allege that I was in my office at 9.07pm. No one is ever allowed to work before 8pm in the building and guards ensure the rule is followed to the latter.

After the charge was hurriedly drafted, I was asked to write my statement, which I declined. Before Mr Muite came to CID Headquarters, the detectives had told me they were under firm instructions to keep me in custody for three days up to March 16, 2007. I guess the pressure was coming from Nation managers. However, they agreed to lock me up overnight and present me in court the next day after Mr Muite intervened and told them the charge I was facing was so petty.

At around 7pm, I was moved from CID Headquarters and taken to Kileleshwa police station. However, as I was about to be thrown into the cells, the officers at the desk told me they had been instructed to release me. They told me they had received calls from senior Government officials, but they did not disclose their identities. As I was waiting for my relatives outside the police station to come to pick me up, Mr Muite drove into the station. He was coming to check if I was well. I felt so humbled by Mr Muite’s kind gesture.

The officers told me to report to CID Headquarters the next day at 9am. I obeyed their instructions. After I reported, accompanied by Mr Mue and my friends, the officers who had arrested me told me the Director of Public Prosecution, Mr Keriako Tobiko, had asked for my file and I would not be charged unless he was satisfied they had enough evidence to prosecute me. The officers asked me to go and they said they will contact me if a need arose. Up to now, no one has called me.

The small clique of Nation managers who had masterminded my arrest were furious when they learnt that I did not spend the night in the cell and I was not going to court the next day, March 15, 2007. They had gone home rejoicing that they had fixed me but God worked miracles and the cells door rejected me.

I have decided to go public about my ordeal because of the arrest and the subsequent events that I am going to explain here below.

At 00.50.58 hours on March 17, 2007, I received a text message in my cellphone from telephone number 0722931884 threatening my life. I will report the matter to CID Headquarters later today. This is the second such message I have received since I resigned from Nation. I received the first such message on February 26, 2007, at 09.42.45 hours from telephone number 0728322974. This number has remained switched off since then. I had decided to play down the threat but it’s now evident there is somebody or group of people out there baying for my blood. Following my arrest and the second threatening message, I have opted to go public on the issue.

Sometimes in February (after I had resigned), I received some information that Nation managers implicated in the sex scandals had hired private investigators to trail me and monitor whom I associated with and my activities. Unknown to them, the private investigators they had hired were known to me and I have since then met one of them and held discussions on the task given them by Nation Media Group. But I won’t go into details for various reasons. I also learnt that Mr Odindo visited the library on Nation Centre’s 4th fl on Sunday, March 4, 2007, and collected my photos and those of former CID Director, Mr Joseph Kamau, which he gave to the private investigators. The investigators have a brief to use the photos (because NMG managers thought they did not know me or how I look like) provided by Mr Odindo to track me down and Mr Kamau to see if we normally meet, and if we do, what we normally discuss. This is a strange thing from Nation. Apart from Mr Kamau, I still keep close contact with two other former directors of CID and at least four past police commissioners and a host of serving and former officers. Why pick on Mr Kamau? What is unlawful meeting him or any other person? Nation will never choose my friends and I’ll continue associating with anyone I feel like, Mr Kamau included.

I strongly protest the decision by Nation managers to give my photos to strangers. Kenyans and the world should hold them personally liable in case anything bad happens to me and my family.

According to an article being circulated in the internet by a group calling itself Kitengela 10, Mr Kamau is alleged to be behind the exposure of sex scandals in Nation Centre and that I and a group of other Nation journalists were working with him. Though the intention of the anonymous group is to counter the damaging sex dossier doing rounds all over the world, they sound like goons for hire and they have pieced together a masterpiece on imagination which they have packaged as a counter-attack dossier.For instance, It’s amusing they are alleging I was armed with a gun when I went to tender my resignation letter. I have never owned a gun and I have no intention of owning one. All they wrote is pure crap, apart from the section they say the dossier on the sex scandal is not new, therefore, confirming the existence of such affairs in Nation Centre.

And confidential information I have gathered from friendly NMG managers is that the managers implicated in the sex scandal have been claiming that Mr Kamau has been using the network of the elite detectives he had while he was the director of CID, to gather and compile the dossier on Nation managers implicated in the sleaze. I don’t hold brief for Mr Kamau and I don’t know the accuracy of those allegations. The managers also revealed that alleged NMG sex maniacs were trying to use me as a scapegoat so that they can scare the authors of the damaging letters.

I wish to state categorically that I have never been part of the authors of the sex dossier being circulated on NMG managers. Neither do I know the authors. Just like other Kenyans and other internet readers all over the world, I have also been reading the material being circulated. The scandalous material was being circulated even when I was still working in Nation, and like other employees, I would also photocopy or download the material from the internet and read.

It’s interesting that the NMG managers implicated in the scandal started linking me to the authors of the anonymous letters while I was still in Nation to get an excuse to get rid of me because they wanted to fulfil the wishes of the police commissioner, Maj Gen Mohamed Hussein Ali, who badly wanted me out of Nation because I had refused to down play reporting of crime and security stories. I knew that NMG managers had been silently linking me to the writing of the letters after I had resigned. When I met Mr Gitahi and six other top managers in his office a day before I resigned, they only dwelt on the issue of why I owned a tour company and a vehicle they allege I bought through a public auction from the Kenya Police in 2005. Mr Gitahi and his managers had all the opportunity to demand to know from me if I had participated in authoring the letters during that meeting but they squandered the chance. No one touched the issue. Their focus was the tour company and the alleged vehicle.

I resigned because I believed the managers were using the two issues as a scapegoat while the real issue was that they wanted to arm-twist me to down play incidents of crime in the country to please the police commissioner. The issue is discussed at length in the two letters I sent to Mr Gitahi on February 18, 2007. I still stand by the content of the two letters since they detail the truth and the collusion between a clique of NMG managers and Maj Gen Ali to force me out of my job because I had adamantly refused to bow to the wishes of the police commissioner.

When I was arrested, I told the officers I expected fair investigations from them because the issues they are investigating directly touched on Maj Gen Ali since my woes in Nation emanated from him. Mr Gitahi, Mr Koskei and Mr Wangethi Mwangi, the Group Editorial Director, were only fulfilling the commissioner’s long desired wish to see me out of Nation. I still have copies of letters he had written to NMG managers demanding that they take action against me – not because I had written stories which were not factual. He wanted me out because I had refused to down play the coverage of crime stories so that it can look like his tenure was marked by a drastic decline of crime. But that is not the reality. Instead of being supported, Mr Mwangi started colluding with Maj Gen Ali and Mr Gitahi jumped into a bandwagon he does not understand. Mr Koskei, who has in the past been used by the management to kick out undesired staff, was used in my case to come up with fake investigations that I had bought a vehicle from the police through a public auction. The truth is that the vehicle was bought by my relative, When Nation sells its pick ups and other vehicles, the priority is given to the staff. So, even if I had bought the alleged vehicle from the Kenya Police, what is the crime since the sale was done in public and in a transparent manner. All the sale documents, some signed by a representative of Maj Gen Ali, are available and I presented them to Mr Gitahi in November. But since my fate had already been sealed when Mr Gitahi met Maj Gen Ali a month before he set foot in Nation Centre (read the February 18 letters which are available in the internet for a better understanding), I had to be sacrificed.

Also, am not the only person in Nation who engaged in business. Mr Gitahi himself is a director of Equity Bank and he is a dairy farmer. And so many employees own NGOs or run other businesses.

After failing to seize the opportunity to ask me about the sex letters during the meeting in Mr Gitahi’s office, NMG managers have now found the courage to use the police to raid my private business and to use them to terrorise me. The raid masterminded by NMG managers in my tour company is no different from the police raid on the offices of the Standard Group on March 2, 2006. The irony is that while the raid on the Standard was masterminded by the Government, the raid on my private business was masterminded by the leading media house in East and Central African region, which has been pretending to be the champion of injustices committed on the citizen by the Government and its agents, champion of human rights abuses, champion of press freedom, speech and association and champion of the respect of the rule of law. After the raid on the Standard, NMG relied on me as the Crime Editor to expose those behind the barbaric raid. I did a better job than even the Standard who were the victims. And NMG took pride internationally for a job well done.

At the time, all NMG publications wrote tough editorial condemning the illegal raid on the Standard Group offices. They feared they were next in line and Mr Odindo and Mr Wangethi had badly panicked because they thought they would be arrested for serialising the Anglo Leasing dossier from Mr John Githongo. If Nation condemned the raid on the Standard Group offices, arguing the Government was interfering with private business, why did the media house mastermind the police raid on my business? Why haven’t any of Nation’s publication condemned the raid on my office? Why have NMG leadership been in a state of panic and going to an extent of lobbying other media houses to ignore my story? The same thing happened when top officials of Kenya Union of Journalists last month addressed a press conference over my resignation, the retrenchment of journalists from NMG and the sex scandal rocking the media house. Although all media houses attended the press conference, NMG leadership lobbied other media houses to give the event a black out. Yet Nation has the guts to expose other people involved in cover ups, crimes, malpractices and all sorts of bad things.

Now, NMG has decided to flex its muscles and use the vast resources at its disposal to harass the voiceless and cripple my private business. No matter what they do, even use all the policemen in Kenya , I’ll never go down on their knees if that is what they wish. I refused to go down on their knees when I was working in Nation and I’ll not do so now when I have no obligation against them.

The March 14 raid on my business is a desperate attempt by NMG managers to hit back because I resigned and I refused to play their dirty game and for subsequently exposing the rot inside Nation Centre in the two letters I wrote and made public on February 18, 2007. It was bitter pill for them to chew because NMG leadership has for a long time adopted a hollier-than-thou attitude and they did not believe anyone would one day lift the lid for the world to see the rot inside the media giant. What was contained in my two letters was mild (it was just a fraction of the real filth choking Nation Centre) compared to what the respected John Githongo exposed about the Kibaki regime. If Nation gave Mr Githongo a hero’s treatment (I too believe he is one of Kenya ’s best hero), why are the managers so afraid when the truth is told about the secret goings on inside Nation Centre? For how long will they continue muzzling the truth? One day, somebody will lift the lid and the whole world will get to know the real dark secrets of the media house.

I’m amused that Mr Odindo, an editor I hold with a lot of respect, can agree to be used by his friends in Nation Centre and is now taking the leading role to expose me to danger by giving my photos to strangers. I have respected him for the role he played in my promotions while I was working in Nation and for the many secrets we shared together. I can say without fear of contradiction that Mr Odindo is one of the managers who are most hated by journalists in Nation. But he remained my friend until my last minute in Nation. I still regard him as one of my best friends to this day and I would be the last person to harm him or wish him bad things. Many journalists in Nation viewed me as his mole and I was almost swallowed by many of them when I often defended Mr Odindo during informal gatherings.

But it seems he has decided to throw the respect I have for him out of the window. Even when the fresh letters of the sex scandals (these letters have been flying in and outside the newsroom ever since I joined Nation in 1995 from the university) started circulating in November, last year, I often told my colleagues that whoever was writing the hate mails, they should spare Mr Odindo and the other good managers. Even if I was part of those authoring the letters, as has been claimed by a clique of NMG managers, I would have prevailed upon the authors to spare Mr Odindo and the other good managers.

When I met Mr Odindo in his office before I made a decision to resign, we had a discussion and he kept pleading with me that I should never reveal what we discussed to anyone. He was even so worried when he saw me with a phone and he kept pleading that I switch it off fearing I was recording him. I cleverly refused to switch it off and his fears were not misplaced. Mr Odindo repeatedly told me he would lose his job if I revealed to anyone what we had discussed. I have kept the gentleman's agreement. On the day the referendum results were announced, I met Mr Odindo in his office and he made some shocking revelations to me. Should he continue with his unwarranted provocation, let me assure him that I will spill all the beans at an appropriate time. I’m not blackmailing him, but he knows I keep my word as far as he is concerned.

I appeal to all the friends of the journalism profession to drum some soberness in Nation Media Group leadership. The Group can not be telling all and sundry that it stands for the truth and then turn around and infringe on the rights of former employees like myself in a bid to silence them. The raid on my private business was a barbaric thing I did not expect from a respected media giant like Nation.

I’m not afraid to be taken to court. If that happens, the entire world will for the first time have an opportunity to know some of the dark secrets inside Nation Centre. I promise the small clique of NMG managers that the trial will be one of the messiest court cases ever to be witnessed in the history of this country. Neither am I afraid that somebody will put a bullet through my head. I’ll not be the first or the last person o be killed for standing up for justice and what is right.

The Moi regime was once feared and many innocent people died fighting for change. This did not kill the resolve of others. The fight went on and today Kenyans know how freedom is sweet. Nation Media Group cannot be the one now trying to reverse the gains Kenyans made. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is still doing it but this has not killed the resolve of the masses to fight for justice. I’ll never be cowed by any form of repression. With or without Muiruri, the truth will one day come out. Why are NMG managers, just like Maj Gen Ali, so paranoid when the truth is told?

FOR HOW LONG ARE KENYANS GOING TO LIVE IN FEAR? Whoever is out there plotting to put a bullet through my head is welcome to do it now. We all live because of God's will but not at the mercy of any human being.


Stephen Muiruri
Former Crime Editor, Nation Media Group


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