NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s top diplomat in Nairobi was killed at her home by three intruders and Kenyan police believe a struggle for power at the embassy was the motive, they said yesterday.
Olga Fonseca, Venezuela’s acting ambassador and charge d’affaires, was found strangled in her bed on Friday morning.
Fonseca’s embassy colleague, first secretary Dwight Sagaray, who was arrested on Saturday and brought before the High Court on Monday, will soon be formally charged as the main suspect, police said.
“We think the murder was a power play….jostling for positions in the embassy,” Nicholas Kamwende, head of the criminal investigations department in Nairobi, told Reuters.
Police have also issued an arrest warrant for Sagaray’s friend and neighbour, Muhammed Ahmed Mohammed Hassan, in connection with Fonseca’s death.
Kamwende said Hassan, a Kenyan man of Somali descent, had in the past “masqueraded as a Venezuelan embassy official” and was known to have used Sagaray’s official vehicle.
Kenyan police are also looking for two other men in connection with their investigation.
Fonseca died between 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday and 10 a.m. on Friday, police said.
