Two arrested as cops identify body of missing British trader

Two suspects have been arrested after the body of the British businessman Campell Scott, who went missing on February 17, was positively identified at the Makueni County Referral Hospital on Monday.

The body was found on Saturday, February 22, in a forest stuffed in a sack and taken to the local mortuary, where officials identified it. Two suspects including a waiter at a club in Westlands and a taxi driver, have been arrested, and they are under probe for murder.

The motive of the murder is yet to be known, police said. The body was found about 110 kilometers south-east of Nairobi, six days after he went missing.

Scott, 58, and a senior director with a data analytics company arrived in the country on Sunday, February 16, accompanied by a colleague, to attend a three-day workshop at a Nairobi hotel.

Police said his friends at the mortuary had confirmed that from his dressing shoes, and physique, he appeared to be the one.

“For now we can say he is the one from the clothes and shoes he was wearing and that were found with the body. We don’t know why and who killed him,” said an official in the team that traveled to the scene.

On Saturday, February 22 around 2pm, a herder reported that while herding cows at Makongo Forest along the Wote-Machakos road saw a green sack whose contents smelled. He informed the area who visited the scene and confirmed that it was a decomposing body of an unknown man, aged around 50.

The body was suspected to have been murdered elsewhere and dumped at the scene, near Makongo View Point. Both his hands and legs were tightly tied with a green nylon rope, police said.

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said Scott was captured on CCTV leaving a hotel in Nairobi with a man, dressed in a white T-shirt and a light pair of blue jeans trousers, before they boarded a vehicle.

Investigations led the detectives to arrest the taxi driver and his vehicle was confiscated. In his statement to the police, the man said he dropped the Briton together with other people at Pipeline Embakasi. Immediately he went missing; the matter was reported at Parklands police station.

The DCI later involved the Interpol in the joint investigation and operation to trace him. His call records were then retrieved to establish those he spoke to before he went missing.

The deceased businessman was scheduled to meet officials from the UK, US, and several African countries about markets for their new products.

CCTV footage captured Scott dressed in cargo pants and a blue shirt before walking out. He came back at around 4pm and was seen talking to the hotel guards.

The following day he left at around 11.15 am and never came back. He had visited a number of restaurants and bars in the Westlands area.

Police planned to move the remains to Nairobi for further investigations.

The team handling the matter had talked to a number of staff at the hotel and a taxi driver last seen with Scott. They will decide the way forward after a planned autopsy.