Gay Activist Edwin Chiloba murdered in Uasin Gishu.
Fashion model and LGBTQ advocate Edwin Chiloba died by suffocation, Kenya’s government pathologist Johansen Oduor told the press Thursday.
Chiloba, 25, was found dead on Wednesday last week, his body stuffed in a metal box along the Kipenyo-Kaptinga road in Kapseret, Uasin Gishu.
Jackton Odhiambo, believed to be his boyfriend, is considered the main suspect.
Media reports that Police said a motorcycle taxi operator reported seeing the box dumped by a vehicle with no license plates.
According to a CBS News report,
officers who opened the box found the decomposing body of a man, whom they described as wearing women’s clothes. Preliminary reports indicated that his eyes were gouged out.
Police have arrested five suspects and are held in custody for 21 days to allow for a complete investigation. The hearing of the case is set for January 31.
His family thanked the government of Kenya for following up on the matter with speed and said they were optimistic about getting justice.
“We thank God that so far the government is following up on the matter. We have left him at the mortuary with so much pain… I am sure there is light, and Edwin will get justice,” said Caudencia Tanui, the family’s spokesperson.
The family appeared shocked to learn about Chiloba’s lifestyle.
“Our child came to university; he was in his fourth year. These other things we are just seeing on social media we don’t know. He was brought up as a Christian. At St. Francis Kimuron, he was called ‘pastor,’ and he was a student leader in charge of YCS,” Tanui said. “We ask Kenyans to be fair to us because nobody would want their child to be that way. We just want justice and let him rest in peace.”
Gay rights activists have also demanded justice for Chiloba.
Homosexuality is taboo in predominantly Christian Kenya and Africa.
Chiluba enjoyed fashion and liked dancing. View his TikTok account here.
Police in Kenya have started a probe into the killing of model & LGBTQ advocate Edwin Chiloba, who was found mysteriosly killed on Wednesday. His body was stashed in a metallic box along the Kipenyo-Kaptinga road, in Kapsaret, Uasin Gishu.
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The KNCHR dispatches a team to Kisii to probe murder cases
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) Thursday dispatched a team to Kisii County for a 6-day inquiry exercise over the high number of murder cases in the region in the last one year.
According to the Daily Nation, 77 murder cases were documented in Kisii County last year. Already, about ten murders have been recorded in the county in the last first half of this month.
The KNCHR Head of public affairs, Dominic Kabiru, said the team’s main aim is to ensure justice for the victims.
Kenyans Skeptical about Home DNA test kit
News that a home DNA test collection kit was announced available in pharmacies at a retail cost of about Sh800 caused mixed reactions among Kenyans this week.
Many men lauded the development, implying they would know for sure if the children they were bringing up were biologically theirs.
Meanwhile, many women appeared to have developed jitters, perhaps because of the fear of being discovered if they slept and bore children with other men besides their husbands.
Nevertheless, medical experts said the home DNA could not decide the paternity test.
“For the actual DNA test, the sample collected has to be mailed/shipped to the lab where the lab testing fee is a minimum of Sh15,000,” Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, a pathologist, said Tuesday.
Sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala among Kenyan Police Graduates
President William Ruto presided over the 58th Police graduation Parade on Tuesday at the National Police College’s Main Campus in Kiganjo.
The event marked the first pass-out parade in Ruto’s presidency. More than 2,000 police recruits graduated after a nine-month training.
Among them was Ferdinand Omanyala, Africa’s fastest man. The sprinter joined the police force in 2021 after he consented to compete in track events for the National Police Service (NPS).
Omanyala won the 100m title and the historic 4x100m title at the Africa Senior Athletics Championships in 2022 in Mauritius. He also won another 100m title in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022.
Ruto spells out the roles of DP Gachagua and Prime CS Mudavadi.
Soon after the four-day Cabinet retreat ended, President Ruto released an Executive Order spelling out the structure of his administration.
The Executive Order placed the office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary under the Executive Office of the President.
The order also made the roles of the deputy president clear.
Besides being the principal assistant of the president, Rigathi Gachagua will chair cabinet committees and supervise the execution of determinations enacted by the cabinet.
He will also manage relations between the two levels of government and chair the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IEBC), and coordinate various committees.
The Prime Cabinet Secretary will oversee the Public Service Performance Management Unit and the government delivery services. Besides assisting the president and his deputy, Mudavadi will also work with Prof. Kithure Kindiki, the CS for the Interior Ministry, to supervise ministries and state departments and coordinate the government legislative agenda with the House leaders.
Attorney General Justin Muturi will link up the Executive and the Judiciary and address any legal issues limiting government operations.
US floats KES 1.2 billion reward for al-Shabaab intel
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The US State Department has offered an Sh1.2 billion reward for information leading to the capture of the mastermind of the Dusit D2 terror attack of 2019 in Nairobi.
The US Rewards for Justice program says it will pay the amount to find Mohamoud Abdi Aden, a Kenyan national suspected of heading the Shabaab terror cell that carried out the attack.
Speaking in Nairobi on Thursday, the US Ambassador to Kenya Margaret Whitman, alongside Director of Criminal Investigations Amin Mohamed, called for information on any other individual involved in the attack on the complex.
“During the attack, al-Shabaab terrorists armed with explosives, automatic weapons, and grenades attacked the DusitD2 commercial center, a 6-building complex of shops, offices, & hotel. Twenty-one people, including one US citizen, were killed in the assault,” the US said in a statement.
Kenyan tips can be shared through WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal via +254 71 8712 366, and Somalia tips via +252 68 43 43 308.
Strange gonorrhea strain land in Nairobi
Researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) Wednesday said a new strain of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease resistant to standard antibiotics, is circulating in the capital, Nairobi, especially among female sex workers.
More than 350 sex workers from a clinic that reported high cases participated in the study. The researchers asked the Kenyan government to change the current treatment policy and advocate for more tests to determine the widespread problem in the country.
Wambui wa Ruto’s corruption charges dropped.
Anti-Corruption Magistrate Felix Kombo struck out the case against Wambui wa Ruto after the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) informed the court that the accused had reached an agreement with the Kenya Revenue Authority.
Wambui, a close friend of President Ruto, was indicted for illegally skipping filing her company’s income tax returns which amounted to KSh 2.5 billion.
On December 3, 2022, President Ruto appointed Mary Wambui Mungai as the new Chairperson of the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
Wambui, the former United Democratic Party (UDA) Disputes Resolution Committee vice-chairperson, assumed the position after Gilbert Kibe, appointed on May 17, 2022, resigned.
World Coverage
Elon Musk Breaks Guinness World Record For Most Money Lost
Don’t feel sorry for him, but Elon Musk has broken the Guinness World Record for the worst fortune lost.
According to Guinness
, Musk lost between $182 billion to $200 billion, besting the previous record holder, Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tech investor who lost $58.6 billion in 2000.
According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth dropped from $320 billion at his peak to $138 billion as of January 6, 2023. Forbes attributed the loss to stem from the poor performance of Tesla stock.
Tesla stock plummeted by 65 percent in 2022.
The slump comes after Musk’s tumultuous takeover of Twitter, where he aggressively fired long-term employees and appeared to pick fights with Democrats, triggering the most significant Tesla stock sell-off since 2010,
GBWR reported.
But don’t dare count Musk out. He’s confident about the future, and only a fool can doubt him.
“Long-term fundamentals are extremely strong. Short-term market madness is unpredictable,” Musk said in responding to a tweet about Tesla’s end-of-the-year sales performance.
Biden has a Classified Documents Problem too.
Like his predecessor, US President Joe Biden has a classified document problem.
Biden’s staffers first discovered classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a Washington think tank where Biden worked between 2017 and 2019. Unlike former President Donald Trump, the Biden team reported their discovery to the National Archives.
Soon more documents were discovered, this time in Biden’s Delaware home, setting up a drip-drip-drip political narrative.
The discovery prompted
Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a Special Counsel
to investigate the case. Garland’s move has faced criticism from liberals who have accused the AG of working to appease Republicans and Trump supporters, creating a false equivalence that Trump’s mishandling of classified documents is similar to Biden’s.
Many have pointed out that the only similarity between the two cases is that both presidents removed classified documents from their secure locations.
The most significant difference is Biden’s team notified the National Archives. Trump’s side refused to return the documents prompting the FBI to retrieve them through a search warrant executed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
Liberals are frustrated with Biden for handing Trump a lifeline on his case, where many believe Trump may have used the documents for nefarious ends.
With Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, Biden may have handed Republicans the political narrative they need to unravel his presidency and undermine him for the 2024 race.
It doesn’t help that Biden’s son, Hunter’s laptop, is already a subject of interest for Republicans in Congress.