Vigilant guards manning the main entrance at Naivasha Maximum Security Prison Tuesday thwarted an attempt to sneak in suspected explosives to the facility. Reports indicate that at around 3.30pm Tuesday, a smartly dressed woman went to the highly guarded penal institution and requested to see two inmates serving life imprisonment. The duty officers at the gate demanded to ransack her luggage as required by prison regulations. One of the officers noticed a bar of soap that had some knife marks and alerted his colleagues who cut the soap into pieces. They noticed what they suspected to be gun powder used to make explosives. CLEVERLY CONCEALED The powder was cleverly concealed in tiny polythene papers and carefully tucked inside the bar soap in an obvious attempt to hide it from prison officers. “We suspect the woman had ulterior motives when she attempted to sneak the suspected explosives inside the prison,” said the officer in charge of the reform facility, Patrick Mwenda. He said the two inmates she was visiting would be held in isolation as they were now considered a security threat. “We cannot take chances and we are going to segregate the two in the following what has happened today,” he said. The woman, and the two inmates she wanted to visit, were quickly whisked away to the Naivasha Police Station and handed over to detectives who immediately started investigations. Later, the woman was taken to her house at the County Council Estate, where police ransacked the house for several minutes in search of clues. INVESTIGATIONS ONGOING “We are holding the suspect and investigations are in top gear. The suspect was nabbed with 300 grams of suspected gun powder used in making explosives,’ said the Naivasha head of the police Charles Kortok. He said the inmates whom the woman was visiting and who had been jailed for robbery with violence would be charged afresh after police complete their investigations. “The two inmates being visited by the woman suspect are in our cells and are assisting us with investigations,” he added. Mr Kortok said the suspected gun powder would be taken to the government chemist for analysis. Naivasha Maximum Security Prison is one of the biggest penal institutions in Africa, with the current population estimated to be more than 3,000 inmates. Most of those jailed at the penal institution are serving life sentences and other are on death row. Majority of those held at the prison normally serve long sentences. It is also home to many hardcore criminals. The prison management has, in the past, struggled with the influx of contrabands with some of the officers thought to be colluding with inmates to smuggle in illegal products having being fired. Mr Mwenda said in the wake of the recent incident, security will be tightened further with 24- hour surveillance inside the facility and its precincts.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 10:36:00 +0000
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