Autopsy: Suspect in former Garissa County Minister shooting died of hanging

The man accused of shooting former Garissa County minister Idriss Mukhtar’s died of hanging, according to an autopsy report.

The shooting of Idris saw Garissa Governor Ali Korane arrested and grilled at the Nairobi Police Area Headquarters last week over the incident. Governor Korane has since denied any part in the attempted murder of the former Finance Executive.

Government pathologist Dr. Sylvester Maingi, who carried out the postmortem on the body of David Mwai on Monday said that the accused, who was in a police cell killed himself using the nylon lining of his jacket.

“The only injuries we found were two ligature marks on the neck, one of them being from his jacket lining, it was 80cm long,” said Dr. Maingi.

“The other ligature is of the new packaging bags such as that of the supermarket bags. This was 48cm long and had not made a mark on his neck. We can confirm that David died from a ligature to his neck from the nylon lining of his jacket…”

Dr. Maingi, speaking after the autopsy, said the revelation does not establish whether the suspect was murdered or committed suicide inside the police cell.

“We have not concluded on manner of death, whether it was suicide or homicide, that is the duty of investigators,” he added.

“The autopsy findings are that David does not have injuries to suggest anybody was involved in his death…”

Mwai, who was suspected to have been the man caught on CCTV firing at Idriss, died last week Thursday while in a cell at Parklands Police Station.

There are those who believe that Mwai committed suicide but the family is adamant that he was murdered and want thorough investigations.