I didn’t poison dad: Tycoon’s daughter confesses in Mombasa Court

 

The Photo of late Harry Roy Veevers, in a photo taken before his death. Photo/Kelvin Karaniv

MOMBASA, KENYA: A daughter of a British tycoon who died in Kenya four years ago has accused her step brothers of fabricating theories that she conspired with her mother and sister to poison him to death.

Miss Alexandra Veevers told an inquest into the death of Harry Roy Veevers in Mombasa on Valentine’s Day 2013 that after she returned to the UK following her father's burial on February 17 2013, her mother Azra Praveen Din rang her about the poison theory.

She claimed her step brothers Richard Veevers and Philip Veevers have been advancing claims that she (Alexandra), her sister Hellen and her mother Azra Parveen Din poisoned Harry to death.

She also claimed that she and her sister fought Philip over photographs of their father's body which he and Richard took at the mortuary.

"I was very upset about claims that my father had died from poison. It is also not true that my aunt and my mother conspired to poison my father," said Alexandra adding that "these are false claims from my brothers because my father died from a natural death and even my grandmother wrote a letter that my dad died of a natural cause."

Alexandra said this before Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Charles Ndegwa while being led by state lawyer Alex Muteti.

The touching inquest was suspended several times to allow the estranged parties who were both in court to cool down. Both parties have publicly scandalised each other in court trading insults and obscenities accusing one another of all sorts of crimes and immorality including drug sniffing and child pornography.

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 whom he divorced in England before moving 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 without an autopsy to conceal cause of death.

Photos of Hellen Veevers (left) and Alexander Veevers during the burial of their father Harry Veevers on February 17, 2013. Photo/Kelvin Karani

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

They claim Azra and her children with Harry killed him after learning he wanted to marry another woman and inherit his vast wealth, a claim they deny and hypothesize that he died from a heart attack or suicide.

Azra and her children have also presented a medical report of their father at the inquest analyzing his health for seven years before death which says he had suicidal thoughts after suffering several problems including an erectile dysfunction.

Initially police had recommended murder charges against Azra and her daughters Hellen and Alexandra but this was not to be and the state instituted an inquest instead.

Dr Salim Omar, the family doctor 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 available symptoms suggesting otherwise.

The corpse has been lying at the Coast Provincial General Hospital mortuary since. Florence's children claim their father never converted to Islam and last week John Whitehead, Harry's friend claimed he told him before he died in his bed that he was planning to marry another woman and has told this to Azra.

On Wednesday, Alexandra told the inquest that besides the claims her father had been poisoned, her step brother Richard Veevers filed a succession case in Mombasa against Azra Praveen Din seeking orders to stop her from inheriting his father's vast estate.

Alexandra claimed she later learnt from her mother that Richard had successfully applied for the body of his father to be exhumed from the grave yard where it had been buried.
"When Richard got a court order to have the body exhumed, we hired a pathologist who represented us during the exhumation.
"I learnt about the exhumation of my father's body from my uncle Chris Veevers who also showed me some court documents which Richard had filed in Mombasa," explained Alexandra.
The witness told the court that after the exhumation, the pathologist took tissue samples to the UK for analysis.
Alexandra told the court that after the exhumation, a Criminal Department Investigation officer in Kisauni, Joseph Kioko summoned him to record a statement over claims about the poisoning.

The witness argued that she could not conspire to kill her father because she loved him and questioned the motive of keeping the corpse unburied for years.

"I want the body of my father to be removed from Coast General Hospital mortuary where it has been lying since its exhumation to be reburied at Muslim cemetery to rest. I do not know why my brothers do not want my father to rest where he was buried four years ago."

Alexandra said she received the news of her father's death on February 15 2013 and made arrangements with her sister Hellen to travel to Kenya.

A house belonging to the late Harry Roy Veevers in Mombasa County on Saturday 10th December 2016. Photo/Kelvin Karani

"After getting the information from my mother I rang my sister Hellen Veevers, Richard and Philip and later traveled together to Mombasa and got booked at Mombasa Beach Hotel which had been paid by my mother.

"We all traveled on February 15 2013 and arrived on February 16. When we arrived I asked my mother where the body was. My sister and I went and saw the body at Pandya Hospital on the same day" said Alexandra.

She claimed her step brothers did not go to the mortuary on the same day they arrived.

"They went to the mortuary on February 17 2013 and while at the mortuary they asked me to leave them alone to have time with their father in the mortuary.

"I got shocked when my bothers locked themselves inside the morgue with the body. I later went to the morgue and found Richard taking video of my father who they unwrapped. Philip open the eye lids of my father as Richard was taking photos and video, “said Alexandra.

She told the court that she quarreled with Richard on the burial day over his dressing which she found to disrespectful.

In this undated photograph, the late Harry Roy Veevers is shown vacationing on the beach with unidentified companion Photo/Kelvin Karani