Lamu Governor Issa Timamy was expected in court on Thursday to face charges related to the Mpeketoni killings where over 60 people were killed.
Timamy was arrested on Wednesday night in Lamu, on arrival from Nairobi before he was driven to Mombasa where he spent the night at the Port Police station.
CID Director Ndegwa Muhoro has confirmed that there are several charges lined up for the Lamu Governor related to the ethnic killings in his county.
“Our officers are finalizing investigations before taking the Governor to court,” Muhoro said.
President Uhuru Kenyatta had warned that no one will be spared in the investigations regardless of his or her status in society.
Despite an immediate claim of responsibility from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab for the Mpeketoni attack, President Kenyatta has blamed “local political networks” along with an “opportunist network of other criminal gangs”.
The accusations have stoked already tense political rivalry between Kenyatta and opposition parties.
Police on Wednesday also arrested 13 alleged separatists suspected of planning more attacks in the country’s coastal region.
An interior ministry statement posted on twitter said those detained were plotting “ethnic cleansing” attacks and were members of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), which campaigns for independence of the coastal region.
Police in Lamu however, denied knowledge of the arrests.
After the attacks, Kenyan security forces killed five people they suspected of involvement in the massacres, recovering AK-47 assault rifles as well as ammunition.
Three others have also been charged in connection with the killings, including a police officer, the owner and driver of a vehicle used by the attackers, and a suspect accused of running fake Shebab social media accounts.
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