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Pressure mounts on Ruto to resign over fake assassination letter

July 05, 2019

By Samuel Ouma| @journalist_27 [caption id="attachment_61381" align="alignnone" width="750"]DP William Ruto DP William Ruto[/caption] A section of Members of National Assembly has called on the Deputy President (DP) William Ruto to take the responsibility, apologize and resign following an alleged assassination letter which has been found to be fake by the criminal investigators. The letter which went viral on social media linked senior government officials including Cabinet Secretaries with a plot to assassinate him. It averred that the named officials met in a Nairobi Hotel on May 14 to orchestrate how to eliminate the DP before 2022 polls. The Cabinet Secretaries had been summoned by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) but were unable to record statements because the DP is yet to file a formal complaint. He only made a phone call to DCI boss George Kinoti. They dismissed the speculations dubbing the claims as wild and unsubstantiated. Preliminary investigations discovered that the letter was fake and written by Ruto’s allies. DCI had sought the help of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to help them track down author of the letter. On Wednesday July 3, the digital director in the communications department of the presidency Dennis Itumbi who works in Ruto’s office was nabbed and arraigned on Thursday and charged with propagating false information. Court was told that Mr. Itumbi had posted the letter in a WhatsApp group whose members support Ruto’s presidential bid. “Pursuant to the perusal of the said WhatsApp group, the purported letter was recovered as having being posted by the respondent,” said the lead investigator. The investigations further revealed that the said letter was drafted in a cyber café located in Nairobi. On his side, the respondent said he has the recordings of the alleged meeting. “I have an audio and video recording of material that could show, subject to the investigations, that a meeting could have happened at the alleged place, at which discussions were held on possibility of assassination of a member of my employer, particularly the deputy president of the Republic of Kenya. I request to play the audio-video content in court, in camera,” said Itumbi. He has been detained in police custody for five days pending investigations. Addressing the press on Thursday, the legislators drawn from the government and opposition castigated Ruto for sabotaging the government and undermining national security calling the investigators to apprehend him. “He has unleashed a dangerous card and the DCI should stop at nothing including arresting him because no one is above the law in Kenya,” echoed a legislator. Others noted that the murder claims is a stunt to cover big scandals the deputy president is associated with. The legislators rued over the claims saying it risks polarizing the nation along ethnic lines ahead of 2022 polls which might cause a repeat of 2007/2008. They wondered why a senior official of his stature should come up with such propaganda. “The arrest should not just stop at the dog. We want the owner of the dog to be taken in for questioning now that it is clear that the whole affair came from his office. If it is true, the DP should resign because he has no authority to lead the country.      

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