The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has withdrawn a case against two police officers and two civilians accused of running an armed robbery and extortion scheme along Thika Road, after the main complainant asked that the matter be dropped.
The accused are said to have included an interdicted police officer formerly attached to a station in Nairobi’s Kahawa Sukari area, a police constable reportedly off duty since 2018, and two civilians. They had been accused of posing as law enforcement to stop motorists along Thika Road, falsely accusing them of crimes, and then demanding money from them, allegedly using a saloon car linked to the scheme.
According to the prosecution, the case centred on a complaint from a motorist who said he had been robbed of about Sh15,000 during one such stop. In withdrawing the charges, prosecutors cited Article 157(11) of the Constitution, which grants the DPP discretion over whether to continue a prosecution, and said the complainant was no longer willing to cooperate after the stolen money was said to have been recovered.
Investigators had maintained that the suspects used the vehicle to target motorists before demanding cash, a pattern prosecutors said pointed to an organised scheme rather than an isolated incident. With no formal charges confirmed in court and the complainant’s cooperation withdrawn, the prosecution said it could not proceed on the available evidence, though the file is reported to remain open should fresh evidence, including of possible coercion behind the withdrawal, come to light.