150 calls, G3 rifle and Sh30,000 cash transfer: How MP was killed in city

They walked into court one by one, each carrying a denial. Some claimed mistaken identity. Others pointed to torture, fabricated evidence, or the invisible hand of a corrupt police service.

All seven suspects in the murder and robbery of former Kabete MP George Muchai have maintained their innocence since their arrest in February 2015.

But the prosecution tells a story of cold, coordinated violence including 150 phone calls in more than 72 hours before the murder, a G3 rifle hidden in a golf bag and a taxi ride away from the crime scene.

Several witnesses have testified, including the prosecution’s 37th witness, Assistant Superintendent of Police Stephen Mwangi, who took the stand on February 19, 2024 and laid bare how the murder of the MP was planned and executed.

In crucial evidence in court, Mwangi gave a blow-to-blow account including the full extent of communication between the seven accused in the days leading to and following the killing.

In what turned out to be one of the most gripping testimonies of the trial, Mwangi presented a communication analysis matrix, produced as a court exhibit, mapping every call exchanged between the accused from February 1 to February 10, 2015.

The data was damning. Some accused had exchanged over 150 phone calls during those crucial days.

Among the starkest findings was that co-accused Raphael Kimani and Stephen Astiva had called each other 100 times before, during and after the murder.

The prime suspect, Eric Isabwa, who would later deny knowing his co-accused, had made over 54 calls to individuals he claimed to have seen for the very first time in court.

The weapons evidence was equally astonishing. Senior Sergeant Francis Ole Singila testified that a G3 rifle, allegedly connected to the murder and used to threaten victims of the robbery, was recovered from the home of Isabwa’s girlfriend Jane Wanjiru.

At the doorstep of Wanjiru, the fifth accused, officers found two rounds of ammunition concealed under a concrete stone, stored in a black polythene bag.

A gunpin, two balaclavas and a pair of pliers were also seized. 

When defence lawyer Stephen Ogalo pressed Singila on whether any of the recovered items had been tested for DNA or fingerprints, the officer admitted he was unaware of any such analysis, despite being the one who had recovered several of the exhibits.

All seven accused have denied involvement in the robbery and murder of former MP George Muchai.

Isabwa, nicknamed Chairman by his associates, is the man prosecution witnesses describe as the masked gunman who walked up to Muchai’s vehicle and using the driver’s lowered window, shot the legislator and his aides with surgical precision in under one minute, then shot each of them a second time to be sure.

Tomato seller

In his defence before Magistrate Onyina, Isabwa painted a very different picture of himself. He said he is an innocent fresh food seller who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I was never involved in any of the robberies or the murder of George Muchai,” he told the court.

He claimed that he was arrested on February 15, 2015 at Marikiti market while he was selling tomatoes.

“The plainclothes officers came to where I was, and since I was used to their arrests, I thought it was normal like before. But this time they arrested me amid severe beatings, injuring my left arm joint and the thumb of my right hand,” Isabwa said in his court testimony.

Isabwa denied knowing any of his co-accused, denied a romantic relationship with Wanjiru, and flatly rejected the prosecution’s claim that a G3 rifle, a blue bag and a black hooded balaclava mask were recovered from a house in Kinoo linked to him.

He denied possessing a firearms licence. He denied ever being at the scene of the crime. He denied the phone records. He denied everything.

“The witnesses against me were either mistaken or misleading the court. I never knew the accused persons before my arrest. I saw them for the first time in court,” Isabwa stated.

His co-accused Mustapha Kimani also took the stand denying any involvement in the robberies and killing of the MP.
Mustapha Kimani Anyoni, alias ‘Musto,’ the suspect prosecution witnesses say hired a taxi to ferry the killers to Kinoo from the scene of crime after the murder, gave perhaps the most dramatic account of his arrest.

The prosecution places Mustapha Kimani at the nerve centre of the night’s logistics.

According to protected taxi driver witness XYZ, it was Mustapha who contacted him at around 3:30am on the night of the murder, directing him to a petrol station in Kangemi and then instructing him to pick up additional passengers, among them Isabwa, the man prosecutors say was the gunman.

The driver recalled a journey filled with conversation that left him in no doubt about what had just happened. “He kept asking if the crime scene had been cleared. These men returned with bags, and I even saw an AK-47. The men in the back seat discussed how none of the victims had been left alive. I knew then that they had committed a murder,” Protected witness XYZ testified.

Mustapha’s account of his own arrest is among the most dramatic in the trial.

He told the court he received a call from an unknown number, and within minutes was grabbed and thrown into the boot of a Subaru by plainclothes officers who threatened to gouge out his eyes unless he cooperated.

Kim Butcher

His explanation for the phone records that showed him in contact with his alleged co-conspirators on the night of the murder was simple: he had seen a poster advertising a nyama choma joint in Kangemi and had called to place a food order.

“I was suddenly thrown into the boot of a Subaru, tied with ropes, and asked why I killed Hon. Muchai. My abductors threatened to pluck out my eyes if I didn’t cooperate, saying ‘uta jua leo.’ Fearing for my life, I gave in to their demands,” Kimani said in court.

In another damning twist in the matter, Raphael Kimani Gachii, alias ‘Kim Butcher,’ a butchery operator was at pains to counter key piece of prosecution evidence in matter.

Of all the inconvenient facts Kimani had to explain was how Muchai’s driver, one of the men shot dead that night, had sent him Sh30,000 just hours before the killing.

The timing alone was enough to raise suspicion. Kimani, who operated a butchery in Kinoo and goes by ‘Kim Butcher’, acknowledged receiving the money without hesitation. His explanation was that the cash was for a large meat order.

“I was running a butchery and had two employees. I often received calls from customers who placed orders, sometimes for home deliveries. My contact details were all over, from Westlands ABC Plaza to Gitaru Junction, advertised on posters,” he said.

“It was just a regular business transaction. The Sh30,000 was for 50 kilograms of roasted meat and 100 bananas, with a tip for my staff. I had no personal contact with the person who called. He was just a customer,” Kimani told the Magistrate.

Kimani recounted a strange phone call on the day of his arrest, from an unknown number whose caller said nothing, followed by a knock at the door by five armed police officers.

He described being struck in the head with the butt of a gun and taken to Nairobi Area Police Station.

He stated that at the station DCI detectives asked him: “’Dereva wa Muchai alikutumia pesa ya nini?’ (Why did Muchai’s driver send you money?)”

He held his ground. It was a meat order. He had never met Muchai’s driver.

Officers who later sought his blood samples for DNA analysis were turned away at city hospitals including Mbagathi Hospital, for lacking a court order, a procedural gap that the defence exploited.

The defence has asked the court to acquit them of all the 10 robbery charges, saying they were innocent and the evidence tendered in court by the prosecution was inconsistent.

In the High Court murder proceedings, some of the accused persons including the two women, have since been acquitted of the charges for lack of evidence while Isabwa and fours have been put on their defence.

The defence hearing before Justice Kanyi Kimondo is expected to kick off on March 18, 2026.