Zachariah Nyaora Obadia, the country’s most wanted suspect who has been on the run for sexual assault has been arrested.
Obadia, who masterminded the ghastly sexual attack on a woman along Wangari Maathai road also known as Forest Road was arrested on Monday, March 14, 2022, at the Kenya-Tanzania border in Sirare.
Sleuths from the elite Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau augmented by a section of detectives from Nairobi Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Regional command, pounced on him as he tried to cross the border to Tanzania through a panya route.
The thug who has been on the run since last week escaped DCI’s dragnet in Mukuru Kaiyaba, through a sewer duct.
Since then, he has been engaging detectives in hide-and-seek games until his arrest.
Using digital forensics, cybercrime experts at the DCI National Forensic Laboratory had earlier placed Zachariah Nyaora Obadia at the scene of the crime scientifically, before launching a manhunt for him.
DCI says “the suspect is currently airborne to Nairobi, where he will face justice in strict conformity to the law”.
The arrest comes as a breakthrough for the police who have been hunting the suspect since the incident that caused an uproar nationally.
In the incident captured on a viral video, a helpless woman motorist, who would later be identified as a Zimbabwean diplomat, was seen being sexually assaulted by a group of bodaboda operators.
It is claimed the woman had hit a bodaboda operator
Following the incident, the government ordered a nationwide crackdown on the bodaboda operators in a move that was aimed at streamlining the industry.
The crackdown saw hundreds of operators arrested and arraigned in court – charged with flouting traffic rule – with many of them being fined Ksh35,000.
But the operation was faulted by multiple players, including politicians who lamented that the police were using the opportunity to harras s innocent operators.
The government was forced to suspend the operation and retreated to develop guidelines that would be used to streamline the industry that has been a source of employment to many Kenyans.
