Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission officers have secured the release of a 35-year-old mother of two who had been unlawfully held at a Bahati police station for two days.
Dorcas Mugure, a Bahati resident, had been arrested on Wednesday for attempting to sell her cows at a low price without her husband's knowledge.
"I had no bad intention. I just wanted to sell our two cows and a calf in order to settle her daughter’s school fees after my husband failed to support us. I had nothing else to do, "Mugure told the EACC officers.
The two cows are valued at Sh160,000, but she was to sell them at Sh85,000 while the calf was to be sold at Sh10,000.
Narrating her ordeal at Bahati police station in the presence of Nakuru North OCPD Duncan Nguthu, Mugure said she has been having domestic quarrels with her husband for failing to support his family and her decision to sell the livestock.
"If I wouldn’t have taken this decision then my two children would not go to school," Mugure added.
She said that officers who arrested her on Wednesday told her that she was a suspect because she was intending to sell valuable cows at a cheap price.
Interestingly, her arrest was not documented in the occurrence book.
Her sister in law Jane Wanyoike, who reported the matter to the anti-graft agency after police allegedly demanded a Sh30,000 bribe before reducing it to Sh15,000, said that Mugure had been ailing for some time and she has always had difficult times with her husband.
EACC officers fell short of arresting the accused officers after they became suspicious on their arrival at the station.
EACC South Rift director Japhet Baithalu said that they have taken with them some official documents from the station and will soon be opening an inquiry file against the named officers. He said that they travelled from Nairobi after the matter was reported to them.
Baithalu said that the officers' actions were against the law as they ought to have charged the woman within 24 hours.