Berliner Tageblatt - Kenyan court orders suspected serial killer to be held for 30 days

Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, described by police as a "vampire, a psychopath", was arrested in the early hours of Monday following the horrific discovery of mutilated bodies in a Nairobi garbage dump.

He appeared in a Nairobi court where the magistrate approved a police request for him to be held for 30 days.

But there was initial confusion as the suspect was first taken to a court on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital which said it did not have the jurisdiction to hear the case, so he was transferred to the magistrate's court.

Since Friday, 10 butchered female bodies trussed up in plastic bags have been hauled from the site of an abandoned quarry in the Nairobi slum of Mukuru, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Police said Khalusha was detained in the early hours of Monday, where he had been watching the Euro 2024 football match, after officers analysed the phone of one of his alleged victims.

As officers swooped in, "he was in the process of luring another victim", the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed Amin, told reporters on Monday.

He said Kalusha had confessed to murdering 42 women over a two-year period from 2022, and that his wife had been his first victim.

"We are dealing with a vampire, a psychopath," Amin said.

K.Thomson--BTB