Former AG Karugu signature on Will sparks family rift

Former Attorney General James Boro Karugu. [FILE]

When he was alive, Kenya’s post-independence second Attorney General, James Boro Karugu, had a powerful signature.

With a single stroke of a pen, he would bind the entire country as if in a symphony, or his advice to the President would tie him from doing one thing or the other.

However, since his death on November 10, 2022,  his family cannot agree on a signature on a four-page Will. The authenticity of the signature has become a tower of Babel, with his sons, executors on one hand and daughter, on the other, speaking in different tongues, and scattered from court to another, in a full-blown legal war over an alleged wealth of more than Sh1 billion.

The document, which is now at the heart of multiple court cases, detailed how the wealth is to be shared.

It indicated that Peter Gachuhi, Full Gospel Churches of Kenya Nyandarua’s pastor Reverend Joshua Mwaura, and the deceased’s nephew Eliud Karugu would be the executors, and Elizabeth Wanjiru would be a substitute in the event one declined or died.

It also identified his daughter Victoria Nyambura, Rose Gathira, Eric Mwaura and Benjamin Githara as the heirs. From the document, each was to get a five per cent stake in Centurion Holdings Ltd.

In addition, it also read that they were to get two each at Kiamara Estate, then the trustees would continue running JBK Foundation.

It further indicated that his son, Mwaura Gichuhi and the pastor would operate his bank accounts jointly, of which 20 per cent would allegedly be used to pay school fees, while the remainder would be used for investments, maintenance of the properties owned by the foundation, unanimously recommended by the trustees.

The document has three signatures, the one which is central to the cases before the family court, the constitutional court and the magistrate’s criminal court, then another, alleged to be by one by a lawyer William Kimani and Jane Wangechi, indicated as witnesses.

Now, his daughter Nyambura believes that the document is a forgery. For this, she lodged a complaint against Wangechi and her siblings, Mwaura and Githara, who were charged before the magistrate’s court.

 When President Daniel Moi witnessed the swearing-in of James Karugu as the second Attorney General. [File, Standard]

Nevertheless, they filed a case before the Constitutional Court, against the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI), and the Attorney General, seeking to stop prosecution in an extension of a row over their late father’s wealth.

Mwaura and Githara contended that the decision to charge them is erroneous, as the issue of Karugu’s wealth is still at the Family Court.

Their lawyer, Daniel Musyoka, rehashed the contents of the contested document.

He was of the view that the complaint raised to the DCI by Nyambura would amount to litigating the contents and validity of the Will without the Family Court determining whether the crucial document is a forgery or not.

“Notwithstanding the pendency of the succession proceedings, the Victoria Nyambura Karugu lodged a complaint alleging that the Will is forged, prompting the second respondent (DCI) to commence criminal investigations into the very same issue,” argued Musyoka.

 In her initial documents, Nyambura claimed that an anonymous complaint was raised to the DCI, which then allegedly confirmed that the signature on the crucial document.

This claim was in her objection filed before the Family Court, by her initial lawyer Steve Mutiso.

She sought to block the alleged executors from running Boro’s wealth, insisting that the document, which was handed in a sealed envelope by Jane Kabiu Kiragu.

“The impugned document is a forgery maliciously created to represent the final wishes and instructions of the deceased regarding the distribution and management of his estate. Vide a report prepared sometime in June 2023, the impugned document was deemed to be a forgery and not executed by the deceased. That the circumstances of the production of the impugned document are subject to an active investigation being conducted by officers from DCI,” her court papers dated August 14, 2023, read in part.

She claimed that other pages were allegedly numbered, save for the execution page and had allegedly numerous grammatical errors. According to her, the DCI called her, claiming that an anonymous person had raised a complaint about the Will, which she instructed her then lawyer to follow up with the investigations.

In reply, Gachuhi explained that he knew Boro, while the deceased while serving as a director of Ngorongo Tea Factory in 2011. Boro was a shareholder at Maramba Tea factory. Subsequently, he said Boro introduced him to the pastor at Muthaiga Club, alongside the deceased’s nephew, and allegedly informed him of being an executor.

“Contrary to what the applicant states, as at the time I received the call from Jane Wangechi Kabui, I had prior knowledge that I was one of the executors of the will, having given my consent to the deceased,” he replied.

Mbuthia further stated that on November 29, 2022, he, alongside the other persons named as executors, attended the meeting at the Elysian Resort for the reading of the Will.

“All attendees agreed that there was no need to read the entire Will word for word,” he said, adding that they decided to allegedly give each beneficiary a copy.

He stated that after parting ways and preparing the documents for the succession to start, he got a WhatsApp text from Nyambura, saying that she had contacted the DCI. According to him, she did not say what the call was about. This, he said, was on June 24, 2023.

Subsequently, around four days later, Mbuthia, a lawyer, told the court that an officer from the DCI called him and they agreed to meet at his office on July 5, 2023. “Such calls are quite normal in the legal practice,” he said, adding that during the meeting, the officers informed him, along with the other prosecutors, that they were investigating the authenticity of the signature.

Mbuthia further said by the time he was filing the reply, on August 24, 2023, the DCI had not gotten back to him. “ I believe that the signing of the Will of the deceased was witnessed by two witnesses who were present at the time copies of the Will were provided to the beneficiaries. I have no reason to doubt its authenticity given the interactions I had with the deceased around the time of its execution and the execution of the trust deed of his foundation,” argued Mbuthia.

Wangechi also dismissed Nyambura’s claims. She said that Karugu went to her office April 2, 2024, at around 11 am and thereafter, Kimani, who was also the alleged witness, showed up. According to her, the former AG was of sound mind, and he allegedly informed them that he allegedly wanted them to witness his last wishes on how his earthly wealth would be passed to the next generation.

Wangechi, a Certified Public Secretary, asserted that Boro instructed her to be the custodian of the document, adding that he also requested that she read the same before the beneficiaries and trustees.

In her case, Nyambura, who is a lawyer, has pointed out two women she claims did not merit a share of her father’s property

According to her, Lucy Muthoni and Hellen Wambui allege to have sired children for Boro. But she alleges that her father was committed to his wife Margaret Waithira Githara.

She claimed that on November 29, Wambui and Muthoni’s two daughters also showed up, but says Boro never recognised them while he was alive and mentally sound.

She further claimed that if her late father had a Will, or created one, then he would have used one of the advocates he had worked with.

According to her, Wachechi was providing basic company secretarial services for Karugu. 

Nyambura asserted that no advocate had indicted writing the Will, and the last page was allegedly not numbered.

She also claimed that Kimani had a conflict of interest as he had previously acted for Boro, and that Wangechi had a Sh2 million unpaid bill for her services.

According to her, the executors had no relevant education and professional qualifications to run a foundation and manage her late father’s vast wealth.

Boro, she argued, would have had his wishes written in flawless grammar, be coherent, and the fonts would be consistent.

Nyambura also told the court that on May 24, 2024, lawyer Phillip Murgor, on her behalf, tasked Martin Papa of Spectra Forensic Services to examine the contested documents. According to her, the company reported back that the document did not indicate her late father’s writing style.

She also claimed that she visited senior lawyer Manubhai Patel, who informed her that he had drafted a Will and trust in 2010 and incorporated Centurion Holdings with the deceased.

She further stated that the executors selected by the deceased were former Attorney General and retired Court of Appeal Judge Justice Paul Kariuki, Amos Kiriro and John Njenga, but the document was unsigned.

According to her, Patel identified the document when shown. She claimed it was strange for Boro to appoint other persons other than his close peers to run his affairs.

Mwaura, on the other hand, said he was aware that his father had died with a Will. According to him, her sister was out to frustrate the process of issuing authority to executors to run the estate.

It also emerged that Mwaura, Mbuthia, and Gatambia also tasked own set of forensic investigations by Anthony Kerori Ngige. The forensic examiner said he concluded that the signature was valid.

“The reports by Martin Papa and the DCI are methodologically unsound. Martin Papa’s qualification, competency and adherence to acceptable forensic standards are not demonstrated, and he further relied on the copies of questioned documents rather than originals, while the DCI used unauthenticated and one-sided exemplars, failed to consider the initials as abbreviated signature forms linked to known signatures and employed unjustified destructive methods such as scraping off correction fluid from the original will,” claimed Ngige.

The succession case will be heard on Tuesday.