How detectives trailed Sonko for 14 hours before arrest

EACC and DCI detectives trailed Nairobi governor Mike Sonko for close to 15 hours from Thursday evening before he was finally arrested in Voi town on Friday.

Detectives who sought anonymity said that the team started tracking Sonko at 9pm on Thursday until he left Nairobi at 1am heading to Mombasa.

“He left his home (in Upper Hill) before he went off the radar for hours. We knew he had been told that we might be looking for him and he was leaving the city,” the top DCI official privy to investigations told the Star.

Sonko, who was traveling with his bodyguards in a Mercedes Benz and a trailing Toyota Land Cruciser V8, resurfaced on Mombasa Road, where police officers mounted a roadblock. 

The officers managed to arrest him at 11.40am after a 13-minute scuffle in which Sonko's team was overpowered.

“We were many and knew that his bodyguards would not do anything,” a police officer based in Voi said.

Multiple sources at the National Police Service said that the scuffle made Inspector General Hillary Mutyambai order a team of police and a chopper, which was in Mombasa, to ferry the governor back to the capital.

"EACC confirms that Sonko has been arrested while escaping arrest at a roadblock in Voi and is being transferred to Nairobi to face charges of corruption and economic crime," EACC tweeted.

The arrest followed Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji's statement that he has sufficient evidence to warrant the prosecution of Sonko as well as senior City Hall officials following a review of the investigation file handed to the DPP by the EACC.

"I have ordered for the immediate arrest and arraignment of Sonko and other officials for the crimes of conflict of interest arising from having received money from the county of Nairobi while serving as governor, unlawful acquisition of public property, money laundering and other economic crimes," Haji said