Police in Kenya have arrested the husband of record-breaking runner, Agnes Tirop after she was stabbed to death, in a case that has shocked the country and the world of athletics.
Recall that the 25-year-old two-time world champion bronze medallist was found on Wednesday morning lying on a bed at her home in the town of Iten, with stab wounds in the neck and abdomen, local media reported.
Read Also: 25-Year-Old Kenyan Olympic Star, Agnes Tirop Allegedly Stabbed To Death By Husband
National Police Service said on Friday that her husband, Ibrahim Kipkemoi Rotich, was arrested in the coastal city of Mombasa.
The police had been hunting for Rotich since Wednesday after his family reported that he had called in crying and asking for God’s forgiveness for something he had done, the Associated Press news agency quoted Tom Makori, Elgeyo Marakwet county police chief, as saying.
Rotich was arrested just before 9 p.m. Thursday, police said, but only after crashing his vehicle into a truck in a car chase with police and escaping a first attempt by officers to apprehend him about 460 kilometers (285 miles) from Mombasa. He was finally arrested hours later in the eastern city.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigation said in a Twitter post that Rotich was arrested after he “slammed his gateway vehicle into a lorry, at Athi River, along Mombasa road, as he desperately escaped [our] dragnet”.
It added;
The suspect is currently being grilled by detectives at Changamwe police station, for more details into the murder, before being arraigned to answer to murder charges.
Coast Regional Commissioner, John Elungata told local media that the suspect was waiting to be transferred to Nairobi early on Friday where he will be taken to court.
The athlete won bronze medals in the women’s 10,000 metres at 2017 and 2019 world championships and finished fourth in the 5,000 metres at the Tokyo Olympics.
Last month, Tirop broke the world record in the women-only 10-kilometre road race in Germany, crossing the line in 30:01 to shave 28 seconds off the previous record held by Morocco’s Asmae Leghzaoui since 2002.
Her career took off when she won the world cross-country title in 2015 at the age of 19 to become the second-youngest champion ever.
“It is even more painful that Agnes, a Kenyan hero by all measures, painfully lost her young life through a criminal act perpetuated by selfish and cowardly people,” Kenya President, Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement on Wednesday.
