NAIROBI,Kenya, May 26 – The family of slain American-Somali businessman Bashir Mohammed Mohamud is now calling on The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to launch a public inquiry into the high profile murder case.
The 36 year old according to an autopsy report was strangled to death.
His body had circular burns on the hands and other superficial injuries, to suggest he was tortured.
His toe nails had also been plucked off according to the autopsy conducted by Government Chief Pathologist Dr Johansen Odour.
Bashir also had injuries occasioned from a blunt object on various parts of his body.
“The family of the deceased is of the view that in addition to the current ongoing investigations being conducted by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, it is necessary for your office to sanction an independent fact-finding process to run concurrently,” reads the letter to the ODPP from the deceased’s family lawyer.
Bashir was laid to rest on Monday.
Police recovered his body on May 15, three days after he was declared missing, and a report filed at Muthangari police station.
His body was booked as unknown person at a public morgue in Mwea, Kirinyaga County.
According to witnesses and police, the deceased was found naked and had severe head injuries.
The body had been dumped at river Nyamindi in Marera village within Mwea constituency.
It was only until Saturday that the slain businessman’s family was notified of the unidentified body at the morgue, which they positively identified as that of their kin.
In the correspondence to the ODPP, the family through its lawyers is also seeking answers as to why it took police officers more than six days to call the family to identify Bashir’s body despite earlier on taking his fingerprints while at the morgue.
“Why did the national police service officers opt to take fingerprints of the deceased in secrecy first before any attempt to identify the deceased by his family members positively? Why did the officers purport to call the family to identify the deceased’s body whilst they had already positively identified him?” the family wondered.
Officers from the National police Service visited the mortuary on May 17 and took Bashir’s fingerprints according to the family lawyer.
Another officer is then said to have returned to the morgue on May 18, and identified Bashir before leaving an identification tag.
The ODPP in the letter has been given 14 days to acknowledge receipt and advice on the course of action in order to aid the deceased’s family to get justice.
“Justice can only be served if Bashir’s killers are arrested, charged in a court of law, convicted and sentenced accordingly. This can only be achieved if the investigations surrounding the circumstances of his murder are done with diligence, expediency , strict supervision snd oversight that only your office can offer,” the family said.
The 36 year-old went missing on May 13, only for his car to be found burnt in Kibiko area in Ngong, Kajiado County.
What do we know about his death?
Mohammed was last seen at an entertainment lounge in Lavington area, Nairobi.
Shortly before 7pm, CCTV footage retrieved from the facility shows him leaving the facility while driving his car.
This was the last time he was seen alive.
What happened later?
On May 14, a missing person report was filed at Muthangari police station.
Later, his vehicle was found burnt in Kibiko, Ngong area of Kajiado County.
When officers from the station went to the scene, they found the shell but went back to the station.
When Bashir’s family returned to the scene alongside the officers in a few hours, the remains of the burnt car had been removed.
Bashir ran a multimillion-shilling business empire,Infinity Development Construction Company based in Nairobi.
Bashir was the main contractor behind the Uhuru Market Complex in Kisumu County; a Sh700 million contract complete and ready for commissioning by President Uhuru Kenyatta next week.
He won the construction of Eldoret town informal settlement worth Sh743 million in 2018 and a United Nations tender for the construction of the S.O.S children’s village in Mogadishu, Somalia, valued at $1.8 million.
In 2020, Infinity Constructions was again contracted by the United Nations to undertake the construction of the Mogadishu Prisons Complex in Somalia valued at $1.2 million.
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