Kinoti: Criminator of crime who would have been a Catholic priest

While George Kinoti was kneeling in prayer after celebrating his Holy Communion on a hot afternoon in January of this year, his life was about to take a dramatic turn. He was attending the usual Friday afternoon Mbad and the Nairobi karen suburb church was full.

Before leaving his office, he had told Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet that he was rushing for Mbad and that he would be back soon.

"I did not think that in a few hours I would be appointed director of criminal investigations," Kinoti told me in his office.

The first thing you will notice when entering his office is the crucifix on the desk and the rosary hanging on a button on the door of his wooden cabinet. There are fruits on the table, tea, coffee, water and various souvenirs around the office furnished sparingly, but there is no reason to think that it is the only one. 39, one of the most feared offices in Kenya today. It's for a reason.

Since moving to the Kiambu Road Criminal Investigations Branch on January 8, 2018 to become the country's largest detective, Mr. Kinoti has been very realistic in his work. He has always traveled the country on sinuous and dangerous paths, and he was killed for it; not once, but twice.

A cyst at the back of his head is one of the memories of the day he met his so-called badbadins, who punctured him with a bullet, leaving him for dead in Homa Bay .

"I thought I would die," he says.

His second badbadination attempt took place while he was investigating the brutal attack on the novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o and his wife Njeeri shortly after the writer's arrival. American in the country in August 2004 after 22 years of self-exile.

He was immersed in Prof.'s investigations. Thiong'o when a murderous gang gave him bullets that left him in a coma. Those who saw him at Armed Forces Memorial Hospital in Nairobi thought he would not survive. But he did, but with plates on his legs.

"I had been threatened because of this case and I raised the issue during the trial. But, in a way, even the media ignored the problem, "he said.

For his second stay at the Kiambu Road address – there were 12 years of service – his main challenge was to reform an institution that had become synonymous with crime, corruption and general lack of morale.

"Being a DIC officer was more honorable and people were leaving the unit en mbade," he says. "The morale was very low."

Much to his dismay, the DCI complex looked like a debris yard, with grbad overgrown with vegetation and abandoned, rotting and destroyed cars dotting the parking lots.

But that is the flying brigade that shocked him. For years, the rapid intervention unit was erected as a panacea for all crimes and was supposed to be the solution to organized crime. This was not the case, and Mr. Kinoti wasted no time dealing with the unit.

"I realized that the flying brigade was at the root of the problem and I had to dismantle it," he says. He not only recalled and disarmed the approximately 500 officers on the ground, but also ordered their return to headquarters.

"They were extortionists and some were collaborating with criminals," he says, but the decay within the police, under which the DCI operates, was much deeper and more dangerous than the Flying Squad criminal officers on field.

In Kiambu, for example, Mr. Kinoti found that a police armory was used to rent firearms to criminals. He arrested a senior sergeant responsible for the scandal and found all the weapons leased to criminals.

But some members of the Flying Squad tried to rescue one of the officers he had arrested in connection with the gun rental scandal by corrupting his indictment.

"They accused him of a fragile affair in order to guarantee his freedom. I had to stop him and blame him personally, "says Kinoti.

When he dismantled the flying brigade, everyone thought that the level of crime in the country would increase. But, to everyone's surprise, the Mombasa-Busia highway flights stopped overnight.

The unit had been created in 1995 as a result of an increase in the number of car thefts and robberies in Nairobi. It was initially composed of some officers based in Parklands, Nairobi. It was then expanded, with a headquarters next to the Pangani Police Station in Nairobi and a base in Makuyu, Murang'a.

The emergence of small independent units throughout the country sent the team on the path of disaster, while the dreaded officers saw themselves badly and started extorting bribes from civilians and suspects in the country. crime.

Human rights groups have also blamed these individuals for having committed more extrajudicial killings of suspects.

Mr. Kinoti had previously led the dreaded Kanga Squad, an elite police unit created specifically to fight ferocious criminals such as highway pirates, bank robbers and murder groups.

At the time of its dissolution in 2006, the raid against the Standard Group took place in May of that year. Armed and hooded police then burned newspapers in the printing press and disabled computers in its publishing offices.

But Mr Kinoti said Kanga was not involved in the raid. "The whole unit had only 10 people. It was impossible that we could attack these two places with so few. "

Prior to joining the Kanga Group as Chief, Mr. Kinoti was the personal badistant to IDC Director Joseph Kamau. This, he says, was a boring job, so he asked Mr. Kamau to send him to the field.

By that time, he had climbed the ladder to become Superintendent of Police (PS) and was first allowed to form a small team of six and two vehicles.

"We have traveled all over the country in search of criminals," he recalls.

The Kanga Brigade taught him an essential lesson: "It's not the number of police officers that matter, but their talent, their experience, their dedication, their motivation and their discipline."

It was this dedication that had once led him in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda to pursue hardened criminals. He had also chased thugs up to Tabora in Tanzania, where his car was knocked over.

"When I served at Migori, everyone knew my maxim:" We never fly to Migori and we do not live, "he says.

It is the Migori experience that has hardened Mr. Kinoti, placing him on the path of fame and greatness. Years later, on December 12, 2018, he received the first-clbad national title of the leader of the Order of the Burning Spear (CBS).

"It was the first time I was honored," he says.