The coup was strategically planned to coincide with the war games taking place in Lodwar, a remote town in Kenya, when most of the army units and the senior leadership were away from Nairobi.[5] This meant that the senior-most officers present at the time were Lieutenant General John Sawe (the Army Commander and Deputy Chief of the General Staff), Major General Mahmoud Mohamed (Sawe's deputy), Brigadier Bernard Kiilu (Chief of Operations at Defence Headquarters), and Major Humphrey Njoroge (a staff officer in charge of training at Army Headquarters).[6] At a meeting of the four, it was agreed that Mohamed would take charge of the operation to suppress the coup. He then assembled a team of about 30 officers from First Kenya Rifles Battalion and Kahawa barracks. The team stormed the broadcasting station and killed or captured the rebel soldiers inside. Leonard Mbotela [sw], a broadcaster who had earlier been captured by Ochuka[7] to announce the coup went on air to report that the rebels had been defeated and Moi was back in power.[4] With the help of the General Service Unit (GSU) and later the regular police, Mohamed gained control of Nairobi, causing the Air Force rebels to flee.Hezekiah Ochuka, whose rank of Senior Private Grade-I was the second lowest rank in the Kenyan military, claimed to rule Kenya for about six hours, before fleeing to Tanzania. After being extradited back to Kenya, he was tried and found guilty of leading the coup attempt, and was hanged in 1987.[3] Also implicated in the coup attempt were Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a former vice-president to Jomo Kenyatta (Moi's predecessor), and his son Raila Amolo Odinga
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