Media reports on how Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko escaped from prison have emerged especially on twitter with Kenyans sharing previous articles published on newspapers about a jail escapee identified as Gedion Mbuvi Kioko.
A twitter user shared an article published on East African Standard now The Standard, on May 18th 1998 with the title as Mystery of ‘jail’ escape.
The report states that Shimo la Tewa prison officers and some Coast General Hospital employees are suspected to have been involved in a conspiracy which saw a prisoner escape from lawful custody.
Gedion Mbuvi Kioko as he was known at that time escaped under mysterious circumstances and left behind the two knuckles with which he had been handcuffed with on his hospital bed
Sonko faced a charge of making a false document which he and other people intended to use to sell former commissioner of police Benard Hinga’s beach plot to a business man.
Sonko was then released on a bond of Sh600,000 with a surety of similar amount but he however failed to attend the court and the magistrate issued a warrant of his arrest.
After the arrest he was fined Sh600, 000 or serve six months in prison. He never paid the fine and was taken to Shimo la Tewa prison to start his jail term.
The article further states that during his arrest he was found with a large sum of money in a suitcase.
“During his arrest, police had found him with a huge amount of money in his suitcase which he went with to the court. After the sentence he was escorted to the prison with the money,” the article says
However, it is revealed that a prison warden who did not want to be identified spoke to the paper and informed them that Sonko was escorted to the prison with a total of Sh1.9 million which was handed over to the prison cashier.
Senior officers were alerted and they asked Sonko to accompany them to the office where they stayed for two hours and later an order was made for the prisoner to be taken to the medical clinic where he slept.
Reports also indicate that the two officers bought new cars which angered junior officers questioning where they got all that money from.
It was also recorded that the money Sonko had was Sh108,000 instead of the 1.9million
The report says sonko never set his foot in prison in the prison cells and he was later taken to Coast General Hospital over unidentified sickness.
Later doctors made complain that the man was not sick and wondered why the prison authorities insisted on his admission at the hospital.
Sonko escaped from the hospital and since then no investigations yielded fruits and seems that it is all in the past.
The Governor has always denied the claims saying that he was released from prison in accordance with law.
