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.
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.
The National Police Service said on Thursday that her husband, Ibrahim Kipkemoi Rotich, was arrested in the coastal city of Mombasa.
ARREST MADESuspected killer husband of Agnes Tirop, the long distance runner heroine recently murdered at her home, has been arrested.The suspect, one Ibrahim Kipkemoi Rotich,who has been on the run with police on hot trail, was nabbed in Mombasa by diligent police detectives.. https://t.co/hgWNI88IJa pic.twitter.com/frGv54XeFH
— National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) October 15, 2021
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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.
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”.
“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,” it added.
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.
country to evade justice. Rotich is believed to have killed the two-time World Athletics championships bronze medallist,by stabbing her before going into hiding. Tirop’s lifeless body was found lying on her bed Wednesday morning in Iten, with visible stab wounds on her abdomen. pic.twitter.com/qTY1Z9QBPW
— DCI KENYA (@DCI_Kenya) October 14, 2021
The athlete won bronze medals in the women’s 10,000 metres at the 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. -Aljazeera