Deputy President William Ruto's Home Attacker Killed after 18-Hour Siege

Police say that a lone man who stormed the rural residence of Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday was killed on Sunday morning,18 hours after the dramatic incident started.

The elite Recce Squad of the General Service Unit personnel flown from Nairobi on Saturday shot the man at around 6am on Sunday, long after the incident unfolded, with a firearm he snatched from a security officer manning Deputy President’s home gate being recovered.

Sources said that the man killed a police officer whom he had held hostage the entire night.

“We have two bodies here. One of the assailant and another one of an officer whom he had stabbed and held as a shield for this long,” a witness who was at the scene on Sunday told the Standard.

Witnesses revealed that police were forced to use an Armored Personnel Carrier from the military to get close to where the man held hostage the officer and brought him down.

“He had shot at the APC as it went near the house but as he opened the curtain to check he was mowed by the police bullets,” said another witness.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet in a statement on Sunday said that the siege ended on Sunday morning, assuring that all was well.

“The assailant has been shot dead and the weapon he had snatched recovered from him. The siege is over,” he said.

He confirmed that nothing was recovered from the attacker apart from the gun he snatched from the officer at the gate, adding that they were yet to establish the motive of the attack.

The Deputy President is said to have left the residence 20 minutes before the attack occurred on Saturday at about midday. Police said that the lone man walked to the entrance of the home, demanding to see a worker of the DP inside the compound.

He tricked a GSU officer manning the gate that the worker owed him money for clothes and shoes he sold to him. Witnesses said that the man is supposedly a known hawker in Sugoi area.

An argument unfolded between him and the officer after which he fished out a knife and stabbed the officer before snatching his firearm and keys to the gate.