Experts differ on cause of British tycoon's death in Mombasa

Pathologist Moses Njue testifies before the Mombasa Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti on Monday, November 28, 2016. PHOTO: MAARUFU MOHAMED/STANDARD.

A leading pathologist has said a British property tycoon found dead on Valentines Day in Mombasa in 2013 died from poisoning.

A former government chief pathologist, Dr Moses Njue, told Mombasa Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti that an analysis of available forensic evidence suggests Harry Roy Veevers may have committed suicide.

His report differs with an earlier one that stated that no pesticide was found in Harry's stomach.

He said a British expert's report discounting the poison theory contained gaps, was contradictory and uncertified.

"According to me the soil sample found around the stomach area had pesticide. It was swallowed by the deceased and that is why it was found in the sample of soils around the stomach," said Dr Njue.

Harry's sudden death is a matter of a protracted judicial inquest involving his two feuding families.

The children of his first wife Florence Marvis, who he divorced in England before eloping with a British muslim woman, Arza Parveen Din, to Mombasa in the early 1980s believe he was killed and hurriedly buried in a Muslim cemetery before an autopsy to conceal cause of death.

Florence's children, who stayed in touch with their father obtained a court order two years ago to exhume his body for the autopsy that showed that the soils around the corpse had traces of a killer pesticide.

But Azra and her children have also presented a medical report of their father, analysing his health for seven years before death, which indicates he had suicidal thoughts after suffering several problems including an erectile dysfunction.

Dr Salim Omar, who first propounded the heart attack theory, has been admonished and fined by the Kenya Medical and Dentists Practitioners Board for certifying that Harry died from this condition despite symptoms suggesting otherwise.

A British forensic scientist, Dr Alexander Richard Allan, analysed the tissues and soils taken from Harry's grave nine months after exhumation and declared that they did not contain any traces of pesticide.