Retired commissioner of police Michael Mbugua and two of his sons were on Monday charged with the murder of a farmhand whom they had accused of stealing a wire mesh worth sh 1000.

Mbugua, his sons Christopher Njau Mbugua and Charles Kinyanjui allegedly killed George Njui on December 20, last year at Riruta in Dagoretti, Nairobi County.

The late Njui was a farmhand hired by the former senior AP officer to feed his pigs. Postmortem report indicated that he died of internal bleeding and also had broken hands.

The three accused persons are alleged to have beaten him to death and also assaulted his brother when they asked him to disclose where he had sold the wire mesh. They appeared before Justice Kanyi Kimondo and denied the murder charge.

Director of Public Prosecution opposed their release on bail arguing that some of the key witnesses have been unwilling to be involved to cooperate in the case for fear of Mbugua who retired recently from the Administration Police Service.

“Some other key witnesses who were able to identify two of the accused persons at a secondary scene away from Mr Mbugua’s house have since developed cold feet in as far as cooperating with the investigators is concerned, citing fear of reprisals from the suspects.”

Investigations also established that the former Cop allegedly altered CCTV footage that showed what happened on that fateful day at his house.

“THAT a review of the CCTV footage has now revealed that only the events of the day of the incident were conveniently deleted before they were surrendered to the investigators,” reads court papers.

The court will rule on February 21 on whether to release them on bail.