Police were Monday granted three more days to detain a man who was arrested in Rongo, Migori County for allegedly impersonating information Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo through a Facebook account.
Calvince Otieno Odhiambo was arrested on January 5 and moved to Nairobi before being booked at Kilimani police station for the alleged offence.
He was arraigned before Milimani Chief Justice Bernard Ochoi under a miscellaneous application where police had requested to be given four more days to detain him before officially charging him.
Sergeant Rinos Musungu who is based at the DCI operations support unit, police claimed that the suspect had created a Facebook account where he was posing as Owalo.
Musungu added the accused account was active on diverse dates between December 6 and January 5 this year and that the existence of the page was raised by Dr Barrack Muluka the communication advisor in the ministry of information, communication and digital economy who noticed it and shared the same information with the CS Owalo.
The CS later on reported the matter to the police who launched investigations into the matter according to Musungu.
Musungu said that Muluka shared the same concern with Owalo who also confirmed to have seen the same page.
Musungu added that upon arrest Odhiambo was found using a mobile phone with an Airtel line registered in the name of Anjilina Achola Odede who was born in 1939 in Homabay county.
He was also found with six mobile phones and several Safaricom and Airtel sim cards.
Odhiambo had a mobile phone that he had used to send a message “Hi friends, we can discuss employment, business, development opportunities, women, men and youth empowerment in this podium to help each other in building a better society and a better country in these hard economic times because I believe that if we hold each other`s hands we will conquer demon called poverty in Jesus name.”
According to police, the ministry of information office was shocked by the post as it purported to make public promises of a nature that was not on the cabinet secretary’s programmes.
Musungu told the court he wanted to subject the recovered mobile phones and sim cards for forensic analysis at the digital forensic laboratory at DCI headquarters and communications authority of Kenya to establish whether the postings were indeed sent from the exhibits recovered.
He also wants to establish why the accused was using a mobile phone of Odede born in 1939 in Homabay at the time he was being arrested.
Police suspect he fraudulently registered the mobile phone using Odede`s particulars.
The investigating officer too added that the CS who is a complainant in the case has not yet recorded his statement as he is held up in meetings away from Nairobi and had not reached him.
Ochoi ordered that he be presented again in court on January 12 after police complete their investigations for plea taking.
