Husband of Kenyan Athlete Agnes Tirop, suspected of murdered him, was arrested

The rising star of athletics, double world medalist, was found stabbed. The Federation has suspended the competitions for two weeks.

Le Monde with AFP

The Kenyan police announced, Thursday, October 14, arrested Agnes Tirop’s husband, promising 25-year-old athlete, whose murder revealed the day before has sparked the emotion in the country and in the world of athletics.

“The suspect has been stopped at Mombasa”. “He is in detention and was arrested while he was fleeing,” said AFP George Kinoti, Director of Criminal Investigations. The man arrested, Emmanuel Rotich, should be presented Friday in front of a court, according to the same source.

The dual world medalist of 10,000 m (in 2017 and 2019), arrival fourth at the last Olympic games in Tokyo on the 5,000 m, was found dead, stabbed, at home in Iten, city of altitude The west of Kenya where many background runners train and half background.

Wednesday, Tom Makori, Kieyo North District police commander, where Iten is, said Emmanuel Rotish, Agnes Tirop’s husband, was the main suspect, “having a call to Tirop’s parents To tell them he had done something wrong. ” “The sooner we will give him the circumstances that led to the murder of the young woman, the better for us all,” said the policeman on Thursday.

The brutal death of Tirop made the “one” many media Friday in Kenya, struck by emotion and stupor. “The murder of a champion”, titrated the daily Daily Nation, writing that “Agnes Tirop had all life in front of her and a flourishing career to come”. “The life of a sorely broken athlete,” said The Star.

The Kenyan Athletics Federation (IAAF) announced suspend the competitions for two weeks in honor of Tirop and another background runner, Hosea Mwok Macharinyang, found suicide recently. The President of the IAAF, Jackson Twei, described the death of the young woman of “true shock” for Kenyan athletics, of which she was one of the “rising stars”.

“act loose and selfish “

Thursday, people bereaved, for some crying, gathered at the home of his family in the village of Kapnyamisa, about two hours drive from Iten.

“When we learned the news, it was very sad, because Agenes has been a good person since his youth and has never been in conflict with anyone,” said his brother, Josephat Keter. His mother, Dinah Tirop, evoked sadly the memory of her daughter, who had the needs of the family, paying for children’s tuition fees.

Tirop had broken a month ago the world record of 10,000 m on the road in an exclusively female race in 30 ’01 “in Herzogenaurach (Germany).

She had proved in 2015 by winning just 19 years the title of World Cross-Country World Champion, becoming the youngest athlete to sign such a performance since the South African Zola Budd in 1985.

President Kényan Uhuru Kenyatta also paid tribute to him. “It is upsetting, extremely unhappy and sad to lose an athlete so promising and so young who, at 25, had already brought the glory to our country by its exploits on the track, declared the head of state in a statement . His death is all the more difficult to cash that acts, heroin of Kenya, was the victim of a loose and selfish criminal act. “

/Media reports.