Barely a week after Al Shabaab stormed Garissa University and
senselessly massacred 147 students in cold blood with little resistance or help
from the police, details have emerged of a big corruption scandal within the
police service that led to the delay of the deployment of the elite Recce Squad
to Garissa to save more lives.
Details of communication within the
National Police Service reveals exactly why Recce got stranded at Wilson
Airport for several hours even after having been on standby from as early as 6.30
am.
The secret communication shows that one
of the police aircrafts, a Cessna 208B registration number 5YPOL, which was to
take Recce Squad to Garissa had flown to Mombasa on a private and non-police
mission contrary to the law which prohibits a police aircraft from being
deployed to private or civilian engagements unless it is an emergency.
According to the authorization sheet at
the Kenya Police Air Wing, the police plane was fraudulently hired to a Nairobi
businessman to do his private business in Mombasa by a senior police officer in
the police service.
The Recce Commandos got stranded at
Wilson Airport and were forced to wait for hours for the businessman to finish
his stuff in Mombasa and fly back to Nairobi before they could use the plane to
rescue students in Garissa.
Although there was another air craft –
registration 5Y-COP - at the airport on that fateful morning, Recce Squad could
not use it to fly to Garissa to save lives because the GSU Commandant, Joel
Kitili, and his team were to use it to fly to Baringo for an operation
following cattle raids that had occurred the previous day.
The delay in deployment of Recee Unit
led to the massacre of 147 students by the merciless Al Shabaab militants.
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