British giant media house Sky News has apologized to a Kenyan cleaning company which is attached to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) over a stowaway story.
In the story, Sky News identified the man as Paul Manyasi, who hailed from a remote village in Western Kenya.
Interviews conducted by the media house led to the family of one Isaac Beti, the purported father of the stowaway who identified the man positively.
The investigations by Sky News linked the stowaway to Colnet cleaning company, which emphatically denied knowledge about him.
On Thursday, Sky News offered an apology for publishing misleading information about the stowaway. It emerged that photos used belong to one Isaac Shivonje, who is in Kamiti Maximum Prison.
"Sky News regrets that our reporting was founded on misleading information. The Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority has previously acknowledged that it was possible that the stowaway was an airport employee," Sky News said.
"However, we no longer have conclusive evidence that he worked for the cleaning company Colnet and we apologise to Colnet for suggesting the stowaway was one of their employees," it added.
Investigations by the Daily Nation led to Kamiti Maximum Prison where Mr Shivonje whose photos were used is still held for unrelated cases.
“I am alive, as you can see,” he said, flanked by his father Isaac Beti, 45, and Nairobi lawyer James Mbugua.
Shivonje said: “Those are my photos and they were taken from my Facebook page.”
Mr Beti admitted taking Sh20,000 from Sky News after they visited his home. Curiously, he positively identified some of the belongings of the stowaway as those of his son.
But in an interview with The Nation, Beti said he knew his son was in prison and did not want to tell Sky News for the purposes of 'security'.
“When the visitors came, they said they wanted to speak to me. They said my son was working at the airport. They asked me if I knew where he was working and I said ‘No’. They told me that my son died after hiding on a UK-bound flight.”
“When they showed me the photos, I told them that my son’s name is Cedric Shivonje Isaac … All this time, I knew my son was in remand but I could not reveal to them. I wanted to protect him,” he said.
Earlier, Sky News had deleted the story from their site. The identity of one Paul Manyasi now remains a mystery with no family yet to claim the body.