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Corporal Fredrick Odera Okapesi, the officer in charge of the armoury at Nairobi Central Police Station, testified on Monday in the inquest into the death of Rex Kanyike Masai.
Okapesi appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo at Milimani Law Courts, admitting that he had made alterations to the station’s arms movement register but denied the changes were intended to conceal the truth.
On changing the firearms register
Corporal Fredrick Odera Okapesi takes the stand
Okapesi told the court the register is handwritten and that he had corrected blank spaces and made entries where pages were incomplete.
He said the changes were prompted by a concern that leaving blanks in the record was unsafe, and that permissible correction methods such as striking out or blackwashing entries were used when honest mistakes occurred.
The officer described the anomalies as human error and urged the court to treat the register as a credible record despite those oversights.
READ ALSO: 3 officers admit irregularities in firearms register in ongoing Rex Masai inquest
'Murangiri was not issued a live firearm'
Under questioning, Okapesi identified the procedure followed when issuing firearms, saying officers are required to sign for weapons and that no officer may take a firearm without authorisation.
He told prosecutors that he had noted an entry showing Benson Kamau had been issued a firearm and later returned it to Corporal Martin Githinji on June 18, 2024.
Okapesi also addressed digital and social media scrutiny around named officers, saying Kamau had sought his advice after being targeted online.
The armoury officer’s evidence touched on the records for Constable Isaiah Murangiri.
Constable Isaiah Ndumba, the principal suspect in the killing of Rex Masai, taking the stand
Okapesi told the court the register indicated Murangiri had been issued a launcher used for firing rubber bullets and canisters for crowd control rather than a live firearm.
He maintained that the Central Police Station register did not show any unauthorised issuance of guns and rejected suggestions that the alterations were intended to protect specific officers.
Prosecutors and counsel for the Independent Policing Oversight Authority pressed him on inconsistencies in handwriting, overwritten signatures and double entries.
READ ALSO: Courtroom drama as officer accused of shooting Rex Masai flatly denies being at scene
Forensics, next steps
The inquest also heard forensic evidence.
A government analyst from the Kenya Bureau of Standards told the court that DNA tests on exhibits submitted by IPOA produced profiles that matched samples taken from the deceased.
Rex Masai
The analyst said soil and blood-stained material submitted for testing confirmed the presence of human blood, although some samples were too decomposed to yield full DNA profiles.
The hearing on Monday formed part of a wider inquiry into Masai’s death during anti-Finance Bill demonstrations in Nairobi on June 20, 2024.
READ ALSO: IPOA takes action after death of Rex Masai during protest in Nairobi
Masai was shot in the thigh and later died after excessive bleeding. The Director of Public Prosecutions previously directed that an inquest be held to determine whether murder charges should follow.
Magistrate Onsarigo adjourned the matter and fixed a later date, September 15, 2025, for continuation of hearings, with additional witnesses expected to testify.
The court record of the arms movement register and the forensic exhibits remain central to the examination of how firearms and other crowd-control equipment were issued on the days surrounding the protest.