On March 2, 2006, several masked armed men raided the Standard Group offices located in the I&M Building and the Likoni Road printing press (Industrial Area).
The assailants stormed the offices, confiscating printed copies of The Standard newspaper. They damaged printing machines to halt production and burned bundles of paper outside the premises.
At the KTN studios, the masked men disabled live broadcast equipment, carted away computers and cameras, and threatened the journalists present, ordering them to lie on the floor. As a result, the station temporarily went off-air.
At the time of the raid, the Standard Group had been critical of President Kibaki’s handling of corruption scandals within his administration, and the government had repeatedly accused the newspaper of fabricating stories.
Government Explains Why Raid on Standard Group Was Necessary
Later on, the government disclosed that it played a role in the raid through the Internal Security Minister, John Michuki. He stated that the Standard Group was planning to publish and broadcast a series of stories that could damage the government and compromise national security
“The police have to do their work. You know what has happened since last week and the matters concerning State Security. That State Security must appear not to be infringing on freedoms. If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten,” Michuki said.
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Two days after the raid, opposition leaders, including then-Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga, held a joint press conference to condemn the government’s actions. Raila alleged that some of those who raided the media group were mercenaries.
“The Russian embassy has no business making a statement because mercenaries are never recruited from governments. Mercenaries are soldiers for hire,” Raila stated.
Uhuru Kenyatta, then the leader of the KANU party, also condemned the incident.
He said, “There are no words strong enough to condemn the illegal, unconstitutional, and undemocratic action taken against the fourth estate last night.”
Parliamentary Inquiry Links Foreign Mercenaries to Media House Raid
Notably, the raid was executed without the knowledge of then-Police Commissioner Hussein Ali, who was out of the country at the time, specifically in Seychelles.
Upon his return to the country via the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on March 5, 2006, Ali declined to provide detailed information, stating that he needed to be briefed first.
“I don’t think I will be doing either myself or yourselves a favour by giving you half-baked information on matters that I am not even clear about and how they happened,” he remarked.
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A parliamentary inquiry was later established to investigate the raid on the Standard Group. According to the inquiry, foreign mercenaries, who were referred to as the “Armenian brothers” (Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargsyan), were involved in the raid alongside Kenyan security operatives.
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