Kenyan police have arrested the owner of an unfinished Nairobi building whose collapse last month is thought to have killed at least 14 people and injured more than 100, officials said on Wednesday.
Police detained Nganga Kihonge, who faces manslaughter charges in connection with the January 23 collapse and had been at large, as he left a hospital where he was being treated for unrelated injuries on Tuesday, they said.
”Kihonge disappeared after the accident, but we managed to arrest him and he will be arraigned in court,” a police official said.
The collapse has been blamed on shoddy construction work and materials as well as poor, unsupervised design and planning.
Last week, Nairobi chief magistrate Aggrey Muchelule issued arrest warrants for Kihonge and three others after charging them in absentia with manslaughter in the deaths of the four victims whose bodies have been found.
If convicted, the accused, who also include the designer, contractor and project supervisor, could face between seven and 15 years in prison.
Four Nairobi city-council employees have also been charged with negligence in connection with the collapse. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which could bring a maximum five-year jail sentence or fine on conviction.
More than 200 people, many of them construction workers, were believed to have been in the building or nearby when it collapsed in Nairobi’s central business district.
Several people were pulled alive from the rubble by Kenyan and international rescue workers led by an elite Israeli military team, but as many as 10 people are still missing and thought to be buried beneath the wreckage. — Sapa-AFP