A surveillance camera inside Nairobi’s Central Police Station became the key witness when prosecutors opened the murder trial over the death of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang last month. For hours, CCTV footage played on courtroom screens as prosecutors reconstructed Ojwang’s final hours, turning the state’s own recording systems into the backbone of a case built around police movements and digital traces.
Who Gets Watched
The recordings showed the movements of former OCS Samson Tallam, police officers James Mukhwana and Peter Kimani, former GSU Unit officer John Ngige Gitau, Gin Ammitou Abwao and Brian Mwaniki Njue, placing them at critical locations before Ojwang was found dead. The court will decide whether that footage is enough for convictions. But the trial already shows how Kenya’s criminal justice system now leans on digital evidence to reconstruct deaths that once would have depended almost entirely on eyewitness testimony or confessions.
That shift matters because the people under scrutiny are not random bystanders. They’re police officers and former officers, the kind of people who usually operate behind badges, walls and official silence. Here, the camera doesn’t flatter them. It records them.
As the investigation into the murder of Dr Victoria Mutiso continues, detectives are pursuing several lines of inquiry and are not treating the July 29 shooting as an isolated attack. They are following forensic analysis of CCTV footage and call data records, and at least eight suspects have been named, including three police officers. CCTV footage, mobile phone data, DNA analysis, geospatial mapping, M-Pesa transactions, digital photographs and forensic examination of electronic devices have all become indispensable investigative tools. The apparatus is doing what witnesses often can’t: tracing movements, building timelines and pinning down who was where.
The Paper Trail Behind the Violence
The conviction of former Migori Governor Okoth Obado, his former PA Michael Oyamo and former county officer Caspal Obiero shows how digital evidence can strengthen a circumstantial murder case. No witness saw Sharon Otieno being killed. Instead, the prosecution relied on mobile phone evidence, digital records and vehicle tracking data to corroborate the testimony of 42 witnesses and reconstruct the conspiracy that led to her death. Justice Cecilia Githua found that Oyamo had deliberately acquired an Airtel line, using a stolen identity card, shortly before the murder. The court said the phone line was meant to conceal his identity when communicating with Sharon and the others involved in executing the plan.
The prosecution also presented M-Pesa records showing how money flowed from Obado to Sharon while he was trying to persuade her not to reveal their relationship or her pregnancy. Investigators established that Sharon and the journalist with her were instructed by their abductors to switch off their mobile phones just before they were driven away, blocking any later tracking. The court heard that the vehicle used had its tracking device disabled on the day of Sharon’s abduction. Justice Githua said that disabling the tracking system showed planning and an attempt to conceal movements. She concluded that Obado financed the plot, Oyamo coordinated its execution and Obiero helped cover it up after the killing. DNA tests on the foetus confirmed Obado was the biological father of the unborn baby.
The court held that the digital evidence, alongside witness testimony and other circumstantial evidence, formed an unbroken chain pointing irresistibly to the guilt of the three accused. That’s the language of the bench. The machinery of proof, in this case, was built from phones, money transfers and tracking systems.
When the State Investigates Itself
The inquest into the death of Rex Kanyike Masai will also rely heavily on CCTV footage, forensic video analysis and mobile phone triangulation to reconstruct the events leading to his shooting. Rex was shot during the anti-Finance Bill protests on June 20, 2024. NPS persuaded the court to allow fresh testimony from witnesses who had already testified, despite opposition from the IPOA, which had already closed its case. NPS was allowed to recall representatives from the Integrated Command, Control and Communication Centre, Absa Bank, International Life House and Bliss Hospital, whose evidence is expected to shed light on CCTV footage and the sequence of events on the day of the protests. It also permitted the NPS to call officers from Kamukunji, Kilimani, Parliament and Kenyatta International Convention Centre police stations to produce arms movement registers for June 20, 2024.
IPOA’s lead investigator, Justin Nyatete, said the investigation faced attempts to frustrate the probe, including misleading information from key police officers, missing deployment records and alleged interference with the arms movement register at Central Police Station. Nyatete said forensic video analysis of CCTV footage and photographs identified an armed undercover officer in civilian clothing at Moi Avenue and Mama Ngina Street. He said the officer’s facial features, distinctive birthmark, clothing and accessories matched those of Police Constable Isaiah Murangiri Ndumba. IPOA said it obtained Murangiri’s registered mobile phone numbers from Safaricom after he allegedly provided investigators with a number belonging to another person.
Phone records, metadata and cell-site triangulation were then used to place his handset in the CBD and near the protest route around the time Rex was shot. Murangiri has denied being the officer captured in the footage and says he was not at the scene. The inquest will test whether CCTV evidence, forensic image analysis and mobile phone location data, considered alongside witness testimony and official police records, can establish an accurate timeline and identify those responsible for Rex Masai’s death.
The same pattern runs through other cases. Technology doesn’t replace power. It exposes it, sometimes by accident, sometimes because the people at the bottom finally get a record that can’t be bullied into silence.
Digital Evidence as the New Battleground
Technology also proved decisive in the murder case involving former Kenya Air Force Major Peter Mwaura Mugure, who was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Joyce Syombua and their two children. Investigators relied on M-Pesa records, mobile phone records, deleted messages, a recovered SIM card and digital records to expose what the High Court described as a carefully planned murder. DNA analysis confirmed the children’s paternity. Justice Martin Muya concluded that the combination of witness testimony, digital evidence and forensic analysis proved the murders had been meticulously planned.
Technology also featured in the prosecution of suspects linked to the killing of former Kabete MP George Muchai, his two bodyguards and driver in 2015. The suspects were convicted primarily of robbery with violence and sentenced to death, while investigators relied on extensive forensic analysis and electronic evidence to piece together the movements of the gang responsible for a series of robberies and abductions that ended in the fatal attack. The case arising from the killings is pending before the High Court.
Technology was key in prosecuting Joseph Irungu, alias Jowie, who was convicted of murdering businesswoman Monica Kimani. Investigators reconstructed Kimani’s final journey using airport surveillance systems. Passenger records showed she travelled from Juba aboard a Kenya Airways flight on September 19, 2018. CCTV footage from JKIA tracked her from the aircraft to immigration, the baggage hall and the taxi rank, where she boarded a cab to her apartment in Nairobi. A Safaricom data analyst produced evidence showing that Irungu had communicated with Ms Kimani weeks before her death, contradicting his claim that he did not know her. The court also viewed a video recovered from Irungu’s mobile phone showing him inside Kimani’s house before her murder.
The murder trial of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri shows the same thing on a larger scale. They disappeared after leaving Mavoko Law Courts on June 23, 2016, and their bodies were later recovered from a river near Donyo Sabuk after being killed. Justice Jessie Lesiit considered more than 6,100 pages of documents, 117 exhibits and evidence from 80 witnesses. Among the most compelling exhibits were CCTV recordings and car tracking data. Police communication records also traced the movement of radio equipment used by officers implicated in the killings. Data placed the devices at several locations, including Mlolongo Police Station, Syokimau Police Post, Mombasa Road, Eastern Bypass and near the site where the victims were murdered and their bodies stashed.
Former AP officer Fredrick Leliman was sentenced to death. His former colleagues Stephen Cheburet and Sylvia Wanjiku were sentenced to 30 and 24 years in prison, respectively. A police informer was jailed for 20 years. The records stayed. The uniforms didn’t save anyone.