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Friends and relatives of Brian Odhiambo at the Nakuru Law Courts on March 13, 2025. During the case of Brian who disappeared on January 18, 2025, and is allegedly was abducted by KWS officers. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]
The family of missing fisherman Brian Odhiambo, 31, were on Saturday morning, briefly arrested by the police during a protest.
Odhiambo went missing on January 18, 2025, with the family claiming he was among those arrested by officers from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), before he disappeared without a trace.
Odhiambo’s wife Alvy Okello said that the police arrested her, Odhiambo’s mother, Elizabeth Auma, and his brothers Carlos Otieno and John Omenge, near Lake Nakuru National Park’s gate.
“They accused us of leading the protests against the KWS officers. They said it was a crime punishable by detention or a fine,” said Ms Okello, after she was released.
According to Okello, the police drove them in their land cruiser for some minutes and threatened to arraign them before the court and charge them with crimes of allegedly leading the protests.
She added that after their arrests, irate youths and residents who had joined the protests demanded their release.
“I also got several mobile phone calls from renowned people, including a local MP following the arrests,” she said.
Okello said that the police immediately released them, urged them to go home, and told them never to return to the park for protests.
“We felt threatened because the whole family, including a neighbour, was arrested, and the protest was peaceful. We wondered why we had been arrested,” she said.
The arrest occurred as the family and the residents protested the fact that KWS officers had declined to give them access to the park.
Auma claimed that someone said he had seen a person he believed was Odhiambo in the park, but the KWS officers had declined to release him.
Auma said she went to the park to demand access and see if the person inside the park was her son who went missing.
“We were to be given access in the company of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations Officers (DCI), to do a search in the park. However, since Monday, the Search Warrant has not been provided by the police,” she lamented.
Auma sat down on the road leading to the park, in front of armed KWS officers crying for her son’s release from wherever he was detained.
Helpless after her release, Auma, her daughter-in-law and the residents dispersed to their respective homes.
On Thursday, the court in an inquest case ordered the DCI and KWS to expand their investigations and forward the file to the Office of Director of Public Prosecution for further action, within 30 days.
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