Returning officer was tortured before being killed, say police
NAIROBI, Kenya
Police in Kenya on Tuesday recovered the body of an electoral officer who disappeared during the vote counting after last week’s election in the East African nation.
“The body of the deceased has been identified as of one Daniel Mbolu Musyoka,” said a report by police in the area of Loitokitok, southeast of the capital Nairobi.
Mbolu was found killed and dumped in a thicket after he was reported missing following the election held on Aug. 11.
“He was serving as returning officer at Embakasi east polling station,” the statement added.
Police who came to the scene told local media that Mbolu appeared to have been tortured to death but that the motive was unclear so far.
This came after Kenya’s electoral body, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), announced on Monday that two out of its seven commissioners were injured at a scuffle at Bomas, the national tallying center in Nairobi.
“It’s not been an easy journey, right now two of my commissioners and the CEO are injured and they are being treated,” IEBC head Wafula Chebukati said while announcing that William Samoei Ruto had won the presidential election.
“We have staff who have been arbitrarily arrested for no reason, some from this center, but we have a constitutional duty to perform and that is why I stand before you despite the intimidation,” he added.
Protests broke out in key opposition strongholds across Kenya after the electoral commission announced Ruto as the fifth president of Kenya.
He won the election with 7,176,141 votes, beating his main opponent, 77-year-old former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who garnered 6,942,930 votes.
Opposition lawyers have told the media that there would be a court challenge against the result.
In 2017, the commission’s then-director of information, Chris Msando, was found killed with one of his arms cut just a week before the holding of elections that would be marred by malpractice.
Ruto, who was announced president-elect on Monday, pledged to respect the law if the opposition challenges the election result in the courts.
