Kenyan police have freed a veteran journalist after \u201cmistakenly\u201d arresting him at a police station and dramatically pushing him into a private vehicle.<\/p>\n Macharia Gaitho said he was trailed near his home in the capital, Nairobi, by people in two cars, who refused to identify themselves.<\/p>\n He was with his son, who drove with him to a nearby police station for his safety \u2013 where he was violently shoved into a car and driven away.<\/p>\n Police later said it was case of \u201cmistaken identity\u201d and that they had been hunting another person who they accuse of discrediting police investigations into a suspected serial killer.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [police] would like to clarify to the public that this morning, we arrested journalist Macharia Gaitho in a case of mistaken identity, meant for the arrest of Francis Gaitho who is our subject of investigation,\u201d they said in a statement.<\/p>\n The two are not related.<\/p>\n A video shared widely on social media shows the journalist being roughed up and forced into a white car by uniformed officers and others in civilian clothes.<\/p>\n It triggered a furious response from Kenyans online, following a wave of accusations that security officers had illegally abducted people seen to be linked to recent anti-government protests.<\/p>\n Mr Gaitho told journalists that in the car, he was \u201csandwiched between two men in civilian clothes\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI was handcuffed and assaulted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said the men had demanded to know why he was resisting arrest.<\/p>\n “I told them I was not resisting arrest, I was resisting criminals,” he said, noting that they had not identified themselves.<\/p>\n They later stopped and after some phone calls, drove him back to the Kileleshwa police station where he had been arrested.<\/p>\n The veteran journalist has disputed the police statement, saying \u201cit is me they were looking for\u201d, noting there was a big difference between him and the other Mr Gaitho.<\/p>\n “I am twice his age. He does not live where I live because they trailed me from my home, as far as I know. He does not drive the same car as me.”<\/p>\n He said he believes the \u201cattempted abduction\u201d was related to his work as a journalist.<\/p>\n In their statement, the police said the incident was “highly regrettable\u201d and insisted that \u201cwe do not target journalists in any way\u201d.<\/p>\n The veteran journalist is a long-running columnist with Kenya\u2019s biggest newspaper, the Daily Nation, and often writes hard-hitting articles that criticise the government.<\/p>\n He has said he is going to sue the police over the incident.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Francis Gaitho, a social media influencer who describes himself as an aspiring politician, said he was consulting with his lawyers on how to proceed.<\/p>\n He said he would present himself to the police.<\/p>\n The police on Monday accused him of posting a name, image and other details of another man as the suspect behind the gruesome murder of women whose dismembered bodies have recently been retrieved from a disused quarry used as a dumpsite in Nairobi.<\/p>\n The police said the “shaken young man”, whose details had allegedly been shared by Francis Gaitho, had surrendered himself to the authorities to try and clear his name.<\/p>\n On Monday, the police named Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, as the alleged “serial killer” suspect behind the gruesome deaths.<\/p>\n They said he had confessed to killing 42 women, but Mr Khalusha’s lawyer has since said he was tortured into making a confession<\/a>.<\/p>\nYou may also be interested in:<\/h2>\n