The Nokia smartphone was initially reported to have been burnt beyond recognition in the June 10 helicopter crash in Ngong that killed Saitoti anbd five others.
However Saitoti family members recently alerted the police that the phone was still in use. The constable was among those deployed to guard the scene of the crash immediately after it happened.
APs training in Kibiko and another medical team from the Embakasi AP Training College were sent to the crash site before regular police came and cordoned off the scene.
The APs guarded the wreckage until it was removed on the orders of the ongoing inquiry headed by Justice Kalpana Rawal. A Saitoti family member called the number but was surprised when the call was answered.
They reported the matter to the police who traced the phone to the constable. The constable was arrested on Tuesday after police traced the phone to Machakos where is stationed.
When the police arrived, they were informed that the policeman had travelled to Nairobi where his family lives. Yesterday, the constable was interrogated at the CID headquarters and later at the Nairobi Area provincial Police headquarters before being released.
In his statement, the constable claimed that he got the phone from some children whom he found playing with it as he jogged in the area where the helicopter crashed.
He said the children did not know what to do with the phone so he took it. The constable said he changed the case of the phone and had been using the phone on an irregular basis since then.
He claimed he would have surrendered it to the police if he had known it belonged to Prof Saitoti. However, detectives pointed out that the constable never mentioned the phone to the air crash investigation team and senior policemen who visited the site soon after the crash.
The constable also had not informed the Rawal enquiry which has been sitting at the KICC for almost two months. Yesterday, AP spokesman Masood Munyi confirmed the arrest of the constable by the regular police.
"We only learnt about it yesterday and there is an internal team that is liaising with them on the case. We didn't expect one of our officers to do something like this and we are trying to establish the circumstances under which he came into possession of the item," Munyi said.
He said he was not aware that any other APs who were being investigated and said it was an isolated incident. "We are law enforcers and cannot condone such an act by our officer. If found to have committed an offence, he will be subjected to an internal disciplinary process after investigations," Munyi said.
Yesterday, detectives said that they hoped that the AP constable could help them trace four people who witnessed the accident and who were the first to arrive at the crash scene.
The Rawal enquiry is probing the crash which killed Saitoti, his assistant minister Orwa Ojode, two of Saitoti's bodyguards and two police pilots.
source: The Star
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