A car that was stolen from President Museveni and sneaked into Kenya seven months ago has been returned to Uganda after recovery.
The vehicle, a Toyota Kluger was stolen from a fleet of Museveni’s cars last year in November. However, on getting wind that the car had crossed the border into Kenya, Museveni telephoned his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta to ensure it is recovered.
Kenyatta put the Kenyan flying squad on alert, who traced the vehicle and in April, found it in Gilgil. It is reported that the suspected car thieves on noticing they were being trailed, hopped out of the car and sprinted to the near by bushes as the car reached a weigh bridge.
By the time the car was recovered, it had already been fitted with South Sudanese Number Plates; SSD 598M. The car was later towed to the Nairobi flying squad offices and would be handed over to Museveni as soon as chassis numbers were verified.
Yesterday, a senior Kenya flying squad officer handed over the car to Museveni’s team.
Through his WhatsApp status, Presidential Press Secretary, Don Wanyama shared a stream of pictures which Nile Post believes are of the suspected Kluger.
Wanyama thanked Kenyan Flying Squad officier, John Njoroge before captioning one of the pictures; “Our machine is back, it has been a long chase, 8 months to be exact,” about the same time the Kluger has been missing.
This is not the first time Uganda and Kenya are joining forces to recover a car from each of the presidential fleets.
In September 2014, Uganda Police helped recover President Uhuru Kenyatta’s stolen escort car, a BMW. The suspected thieves vandalised the car and removed the tracking system, but were traced through one of their girlfriends and arrested in Wandegeya.
Again in August last year, a black Nissan V8 which is part of Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential convoy was stolen from State House Nairobi but was intercepted at a police barrier in Boma Ng’ombe headed towards Kilimanjaro according to Tanzanian police.
It had the registration plates number T954 DEQ which police said were fake. The car’s original registration is said to have been KCP 184R.
