The Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) on Tuesday positively identified a boda boda operator who is believed to be the mastermind of a case where a woman was sexually harassed along Wangari Maathai Road in Nairobi on Friday last week by a group of boda boda operators.
The DCI say that they were able to identify one Zacharia Nyaora Obadia as the mastermind of the incident that attracted countrywide condemnation.
Sleuths from the DCI say that they identified Obadia who is currently on the run after conducting a digital forensic search which placed the suspect on the scene of the crime.
“Undercover agents drawn from the elite Crime Research & Intelligence Bureau (CRIB) and DCI Nairobi Regional Headquarters, narrowed down on the suspect identified as Zachariah Nyaora Obadia.
“Using digital forensics, the sleuths working with cybercrime experts at the DCI National Forensic Laboratory, placed the thug at the scene of the crime scientifically,” the DCI said in a report.
The officers also found out that the suspect is a resident of the informal settlement of Mukuru Kaiyaba where his wife and other family members positively identified him as the person who sexually assaulted the woman.
Though they went all the way to his home, they were unable to arrest him after he reportedly fled after he was alerted that the police were looking for him.
The suspect who has been marked as a most wanted person is said to have escaped the arrested through a sewer duct in the densely populated area.
“The suspect has also been positively identified by his wife and other relatives, sexually assaulting the victim in the widely shared videotape. However, the suspect who is aware of the ongoing crackdown on errant boda boda riders escaped our dragnet by a whisker, via a sewer duct in the densely populated settlement,” the DCI said.
The detectives who assured the public of arresting the suspect soon asked Obadia to surrender to the nearest police station within 24 hours.
“His accomplices who were within the vicinity of the barbaric attack whether captured on the video clip or not, have all been identified forensically. They are hereby ordered to submit themselves at DCI headquarters before detectives catch up with them,” the detectives added.