• Call data records produced in court as evidence reveal that Gombe's mobile phone was active from 4pm to midnight.
• It was captured roaming in different locations among them Pesoda, Migori forest, Oruba estate, Nyamira market and Nyasare.
Image: COURTESY
A taxi driver who allegedly ferried Sharon Otieno to a thicket in Kodera forest where she is said to have met her death was on Friday put to task to explain the inconsistencies in his evidence before court.
Defense counsels Rodgers Sagana and Kioki Kilukumi pointed out a number of discrepancies in Jackson Gombe's witness statement and his narration before court.
Among them was Gombe telling the court that he had left his phone charging at a shop in Migori when he started his journey headed to Oyugis.
Call data records produced in court as evidence reveal that Gombe's mobile phone was active from 4pm to midnight.
It was captured roaming in different locations among them Pesoda, Migori forest, Oruba estate, Nyamira market and Nyasare.
There were also incoming and outgoing calls.
Sagana in attempting to establish if the shop where Gombe claims to have left his phone was a mobile one asked the witness to explain the possibilities of his phone being active yet his statement read that his phone was off.
"I did not write that part of the statement," Gombe said.
He, however, confirmed to having read it before signing it but mentioned he might not have been keen with the details of the statement.
He maintained that he had left the phone at a certain shop in Migori and that the keeper or his brother were attending to it.
Sagana prodded him further about a call he received that same night with a phone that was off and allegedly left charging at Migori.
Call records obtained from Safaricom show that night at 22.37hrs, Gombe was in Migori forest.
He received a call that lasted 41 seconds.
The person who called was his brother Ken.
He could not explain the circumstances of this scenario.
The defense team further took issue with the time estimates given by the witness and his account regarding where he dropped off the alleged abductors.
The witness had claimed that he dropped them at a thicket in Oyugis. He did not leave the scene as the men asked him to wait.
They came back after 15 minutes, this time without Sharon.
Sagana in disputing the prosecution's case said it was not possible that within those minutes the men would have gone to Kodera forest and come back to where Gombe was.
Gombe is testifying against former Migori Governor Okoth Obado, his PA Michael Oyamo and Caspal Obiero, a former clerk at Migori county.
The three have been accused of killing Sharon and her unborn baby on September 3, 2018.
They have denied the charges. Gombe was a taxi driver employed by Caspal's wife-Olivia Odhiambo.
On Thursday, Gombe narrated to court how he was called by a man identified as Elvis, instructing him to go and pick Oyamo in Uriri.
Elvis was a Kenya Police guard assigned to Obado at the time.
Gombe said he did as instructed and proceeded to Uriri, where he found Oyamo in the company of two other men.
He said they were strangers to him.
But his statement, which he read out in court, contains a description of those three men. One was Oyamo, the second he describes as a tall dark man from Awendo whom he used to see in the company of Obado during the campaign period.
He also describes the third man whom he says he is a person not new to him as he also used to be in the governor's campaign.
The names of these men are not given.
But Gombe again disowned that part of his statement, saying he did not know the men that were with Oyamo.
These men it is said are the ones who drove off with the driver in the company of Sharon and the journalist on the fateful day.
Records show that Oyamo was left behind while Sharon and the journalist went with the three 'strange men' in the vehicle.
But the journalist allegedly managed to escape from the moving vehicle and Sharon was left alone with her "assailants".
"I put it to you that the description of these men and associating them with Obado is the prosecution's theory imposed in your statement to implicate Obado," Sagana said.
With the witness disowning parts of his statement which he read and signed, Sagana said he was not being truthful in his account regarding the events of September 3, 2018.
"You are a planted witness and has no idea what happened on that day. You did not participate at all on any events of 3rd September 2018," Sagana said.
"Your evidence before court is a prosecution theory imposed on you to implicate former Governor of Migori Okoth Obado."