Family, Friends Kept in Dark Over US Soldiers Death in Kenya

US Staff Sgt. Anthony Warigi was a veteran of the Afghan war on leave in his native Kenya when a “shady” altercation at a bar reportedly ended in a deadly gunfight. Mysteriously, Army casualty notification officers notified Warigi’s family in Kenya a day after the attack Army officials were at the hospital immediately after the attack and collected evidence, including performing their own autopsy.

His friends and family thought he may have been targeted for his money in a simple mugging or because he was a US soldier, a cause for resentment in Kenya, apparently. Stranger still, when Wagiri’s family contacted the Army Criminal Investigation Command, a spokesperson said “To protect the integrity of the investigation, we are not releasing details of the investigation at this time.”

Wagiri was promoted to staff sergeant in June 2010, and given the expanded US role in east Africa in recent months, his loved ones are beginning to suspect his death was the result of a military mission gone wrong. In keeping with the new US strategy to keep Americans in the dark about foreign policy, especially in east Africa, the US Army is mum on the true nature of his death…even to the deceased own family.

Read the whole story by Nick Penzenstadler at Army Times.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.