The unsolved murder of Kenyan journalist, which FBI condemned

On February 13, 2003, the US Embassy released a press statement condemning the death of a former journalist at the Star, and then for The People Daily as a freelancer William Munuhe, whose death the FBI claimed was directly connected with his willingness to provide information on a dangerous criminal that was hiding in Kenya and who 16 years later remains the world’s most wanted fugitive hiding in Kenya.

William Munuhe Gichuki was found dead in his house at Karen estate. By the time he died, Munuhe wasn’t a journalist. He had become a government supplier and a bagman for a senior public servant, two things that would eventually lead to his death.

Sixteen years after his death, Munuhe’s family has kept hope alive that their kin’s death would be resolved although investigations by the police have yielded little result so far.

A letter his family found in his pants, written in late December 2002, detailed an earlier kidnapping. The 27-year-old former journalist had been abducted from the Safari Park Hotel and driven for four hours in the boot of a car.

Munuhe was killed when he tried to lead Rwandan fugitive Felicien Kabuga to a trap in his home. The closest anyone had ever come to catching Kabuga before that January in 2003 was six years prior, in 1997, and at least once in August 1994. In the 1997 raid, all Kenyan police found in the townhouse where Kabug

a had been hiding was a note from one of them warning Kabuga of the ambush. Then in 2002, Munuhe said he had met Kabuga, and he was willing to help the many police agencies looking for him catch him.

The Rwandan man is connected with financing, incitement and supplying weapons in the 1994 genocide. To date, Kabuga is still roaming free while the mystery surrounding Munuhe’s death remains unresolved and as far as the family is concerned, the police are still investigating.

In 2002, Munuhe said he had met Kabuga, and he was willing to help the many police agencies looking for him catch him.

A few hours after Munuhe died on January 15th, Kenyan and American police lay in wait outside his house waiting for the Rwandan to arrive. They gave up after six hours and left, unknowingly leaving the corpse of their contact inside the house. When he still didn’t show up two days later, they broke into his house.

Munuhe’s mother Lydia Wangui vividly recounts her last conversation with her late son in December 2002, a few days before he died. She maintains that her son, a freelance journalist, was murdered for giving information that would have led to Kabuga’s arrest and justice for Rwandans.
“He visited me at home in Nyeri in the December holiday and brought foodstuff for the holiday.

He, however, looked so downcast and disturbed as he explained that some unknown people were hunting him. He suspected that the unknown individuals were police officers who wanted to arrest him for having revealed the truth about Kabuga’s presence in Kenya,” says Wangui.

On receiving information about his death, Wangui went to his Karen home and demanded to get into the house. “I saw bloodstains on the wall and an empty bed, clothes were scattered all over,” recalls the mother. Wangui was overwhelmed with grief and could not accompany her elder son and husband to the mortuary to view Munuhe’s body.

William Munuhe Gichuki’s body was found in his bed on January 17th, 2003. He had been shot once in the head and there was a jiko next to his bed. His face was disfigured, most likely postmortem, with acid. He had been dead at least two days.

When he was abducted from safari park hotel, it is alleged that he was taken into a room where he met Kabuga and three men who told him that they had recordings of his sit-downs with an FBI handler only known as “Mr. Scott.”

Munuhe had written to powerful Moi-era PS Zakayo Cheruiyot telling him he had spoken to Kabuga. The CID then summoned Munuhe, and within weeks Kabuga abducted him. Munuhe told the FBI he could bring Kabuga to them, so they set up a trap only they were a few hours too late.