Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have finally released the evidence they gathered on three Venezuelan nationals accused of tampering with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) systems.



DCI, on Friday, August 26, presented its response to the Raila Odinga and Martha Karua petition filed at the Supreme Court of Kenya.

Evidence gathered from the trio alleged that they had access to key election material such as the KIEMS kit, data on the deployment of election technology and passwords of IEBC personnel.

The report was for the first time made public since the arrest of the three foreigners, Salvador Javier Suarez, Jose Castellano and Joel Garcia, at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on July 21, 2022.

Castellano, DCI in its affidavit argues, could be able to access the system and manipulate data if he so wished.

“It was established that the confiscated exhibits had substantial information held in the IEBC systems are in full control of foreign employees of M/S Smartmatic International Holdings B.V. and Seamless Limited who have been contracted by IEBC.

“Castellano was in a position to remotely access the entire IEBC data and has the capacity to add, delete, edit or manipulate in any manner the entire IEBC system," read the report in part.

From their analysis, DCI also stated that 21 individuals had access to the system with only two being Kenyans working at the electoral body.

Consequently, DCI recommended that the IEBC system should be audited so as to unravel if there was any infiltration of any kind.

Prior to the polls, there was a stalemate between the DCI boss George Kinoti and the Commission led by its chair Wafula Chebukati -who stated that the arrested were attempts to intimidate the poll agency and influence the election outcome.

In a press conference on July 28, both parties revealed that they had sorted out their issues, but declined to answer questions fronted by the media.

The report by the police came in the wake of Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua's petition challenging the victory of President-elect William Ruto.

In their petition, the duo have asked the Supreme Court to nullify the victory of William Ruto as they allege that Form 34As uploaded to the IEBC portal were manipulated by their opponents in cohort with foreigners.

This was also supported by an affidavit filed by Commissioner Justus Nyang'aya who stated that Forms 34A sent to IEBC servers were intercepted and manipulated by foreigners.