In his book, The Flame of Freedom, Raila narrated how a police commissioner was fired for failing to break his resilience while he was in detention.
Odinga had been locked up for a week when he was transferred to the GSU headquarters together with then Sunday Standard Assistant Managing Editor Otieno Mak’Onyango.
he met for the first time, police commissioner Ben Gethi. who had personally come to interrogate him on his connection with the 1982 attempted coup.
on August 19, 1982, Shaw came for Raila and he was returned to the CID headquarters to face further interrogation and made another lengthy statement before being returned to the GSU headquarters. According to Raila, at 11:00pm that evening, his cell was invaded by a group of GSU officers led by Ben Gethi, the police commissioner who was accompanied by Mbuthia, the commandant of the GSU.
He was subjected to rough interrogation including being beaten up in an attempt to extract a confession.Gethi was drunk and was chewing a leg of roast goat as he ordered his officers to assault Raila and company. Gethi ordered that Raila be given pen and paper and commanded him to write everything he knew about the coup. Gethi told him to write a confession addressed to Uncle Ben asking for mercy. But Raila refused to implicate himself.
Instead, he wrote that he knew that Charles Njonjo, the powerful Minister of Constitutional Affairs was involved in a plan to overthrow Moi. Gethi, a close associate of Njonjo, tore up Raila’s statement four times. It read: I stated that I had received information to the effect that Mr. Njonjo had made plans to overthrow the Government of Kenya with the aid of South African and Israeli mercenaries and the General Service Unit. To this effect, a substantial amount of arms had been smuggled into the country. Some of these arms were kept somewhere in the Aberdares and the said coup was planned to take place on the August 5, 1982. I also stated that the same source had said that several South Africans and Israeli agents had come into the country to make arrangements for the coup.
Gethi sacked
Two days after his assault on Raila, Gethi was relieved of his post in the public interest and jailed by President Moi. Apparently, he could no longer be trusted and he was replaced by Bernard Njiinu. But Njonjo was not carpeted until June 29, 1983 when he was suspended as minister and an inquiry set up to look into several allegations that bordered on compromising the security and integrity of the Kenyan state and conspiracy to overthrow President Moi. The Commission of Inquiry believed the testimony of Raila, and on the basis of this and other evidence adduced before it, concluded in the affirmative on most of the allegations against Njonjo
