This archive report was first published on 21 November 2019.
On June 30th, a stowaway was discovered on a Kenya Airways flight to London, sparking a media frenzy. However, the story took a dramatic turn when Isaac Betti, the man named in a Sky News report published on November 11th, revealed that he had been bribed with ksh20,000 to lie about his son's involvement.
According to Betti, he was asked by a Sky News reporter to identify the stowaway as his son, Paul Manyasi, but he had actually been told that his son, Cedric Isaac Shivonje, was alive and working in Kawangware on the fateful day. Shivonje, a former teacher of English and science at a private school, was actually in a Kenyan prison for failure to raise a Ksh200,000 bail for an unrelated crime.
Betti has since refuted the Manyasi name, revealing that his son's real name is Cedric Isaac Shivonje. He admitted to lying on record to Sky News, saying, 'I could not tell them that my son was in jail.' He further explained that he wanted to protect his son and did not want his neighbors to know that he was in prison.
Shivonje has been speaking to journalists from his prison cell, and Betti has revealed that the pictures used in the Sky News report were taken from his Facebook page. The incident has raised questions about the accuracy of media reports and the lengths to which individuals will go to protect their loved ones.
