Koinange kin point finger at State officials in land activist's Moses Mpoe killing

Mbiyu Koinange’s Widow, Eddah Wanjiru [PHOTO: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD]

NAKURU COUNTY: The trial of seven persons, among them two relatives of a former Cabinet minister, over the murder of a land rights activist took a new twist when the defence claimed that powerful Government officials planned the killing.

Activist Moses Mpoe was shot dead on December 3, 2010, alongside Parsaaiyia ole Kitu. He had been leading a campaign seeking to repossess thousands of acres of land allegedly taken away from the Maasai community by the colonialists.

Those charged with his death include the widow of the late Cabinet minister Mbiyu Koinange, Eddah Wanjiru, and her step-son, David Njuno.

The Koinange family claims ownership of the 4,923-acre Muthera Farm in Mau Narok, but some members of the Maasai community say it is their ancestral land, taken from them after independence.

Two weeks ago, Wanjiru told Justice Hellen Omondi that powerful people in government were interested in buying the land to resettle internally displaced persons.

In her court testimony, she said Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia, who was then the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Security, was interested in the land. A deal, she said, was to be brokered through Kiambu Governor William Kabogo’s firm, Impulse Developers Company.

Planned murder

She said that in 2010, her lawyer, Gatonye Waweru, called her and her step-son, Njuno, to his office in Nairobi. The lawyer told them that Kabogo wanted to know whether the two of them were going to sell the land. They refused.

In November of the same year, Wanjiru told the court, she returned from a trip to China to find that Kabogo had convinced other members, together with one of the late Koinange’s sons, David Waiganjo, to sell him the land.

She said an agreement of Sh214 million had been reached, and Kabogo had paid a deposit of Sh21 million. He then gave a guarantee from Charter Bank for the balance. The bank closed down soon after this transaction.

Kabogo transferred the farm to his firm Impulse Developers Company and that is how a dispute came about. There is a civil case between Kabogo and the Koinange family at the High Court in Nakuru.

Moses Mpoe’s eldest son, Raphael, testified that after Waiganjo was mentioned in connection to the killing, he went to Nairobi to meet Criminal Investigations Director Ndegwa Muhoro and Kabogo, then Juja MP.

His uncle Josephat Mpoe, Raphael said in court and in his written statement, was then hired to manage the farm and promised a piece of the land to compensate Moses’ death.

Raphael said his uncle later explained to him that the farm would be divided into three – for the Government, Waiganjo and Mpoe’s family and other squatters.

“Even if these people are the ones who killed your father, according to our customs, if somebody is killed and land is given to compensate for death, it is sufficient. If we get this land, it is like getting your father back,” Mpoe’s son claimed his uncle told him.

Lead counsel Paul Muite, during the final submissions in the defence of Wanjiru and Njuno, claimed that highly placed persons in the Government planned the murder and should be investigated.

“People do not kill without a motive. It is clear that those involved were highly placed individuals capable of buying Muthera Farm on the cheap and making a tidy profit by selling it for much more to the Government,” Muite said.

He questioned why Waiganjo, who was a prosecution witness, was not investigated though he had been mentioned in the alleged murder plot.

The lawyer said the then Provincial Police Officer, Nakuru District Criminal Investigation Officer and area police boss acted as gatekeepers in the scheme by powerful individuals who wanted to acquire the land and later resell it at an exorbitant price.

In the trial, which has lasted more than three years, the defence lawyers, from the evidence of two protected witnesses, demonstrated how the police were allegedly used by powerful people to kill Mpoe.

Two widows of the alleged assassins of Mpoe told the court that their husbands were promised Sh2 million and parcels of land, but were later killed by police to cover up the plot.

One of them claimed her husband was paid Sh200,000 to kill Mpoe and was waiting for the balance when police killed him in their house at Rhonda Estate, led by then Nakuru police boss Johnstone Ipara.

Third accomplice

The widows alleged that the third accomplice, a motorcyclist identified as “Oti” and “Mjaluo”, was also killed by the police.

Gordon Ogolla, one of the defence lawyers, said the inconsistency of the prosecution’s case revealed the “typical way police investigations are conducted in Kenya”, describing it as nothing but a “public relations gimmick”.

Others facing trial for Mpoe’s murder are Nicholas Ngetich, Johnstone Sigei, Stephen Mwanga, Sanaga Mbukoi and Kiragu Macharia.

Mpoe and Kitu were shot dead by a gunman riding a motorcycle in a traffic jam at Soilo Junction on the Nakuru- Eldoret highway. Judgement on the murder trial will be delivered on December 15.

But the killings did not end there.

On October 9, a herdsman at Muthera Farm, Katoine ole Keshe, died after he was shot with a poisoned arrow by people suspected to be from the farm. He became the fourth victim of a bitter tussle over the fertile land. The gang also torched the house of his employer, Joseph Mpoe.

Following the incident, angry villagers blocked the police from taking away the body and demanded that the assailants be arrested first.

Four security guards — Lesue Sururu, Laanoi Simpiri, Daniel Nkuto and Raiyan Dapash — have since been charged with the murder of the herdsman.

Early this year, William Nkirrimba, a villager residing near the farm was hacked to death during clashes between villagers and the farm’s employees.

The expansive and fertile farm is leased to wheat farmers. As the conflict continues, the provincial administration and police in Nakuru have over the years come under focus over their role in the woes facing the farm’s management.

The Maasai community says the land injustices began in 1902, when community elders led by Olenana signed a treaty with the British colonialists. The treaty allowed the colonialists to take over the highlands for commercial farming.

According to documents filed in court by the Maasai in 1907, the colonial administration took over 30,000 acres of land in Narok and the neighbouring Mau Narok area.

In 2004, the community was at war with the Government after it extended land leases that were meant to expire after 99 to 999 years.