Koinange widow loses bid to stop arrest

Karanja Njoroge

The widow of the late Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange has lost a bid to bar Police from arresting her over the death of two Maasai land rights crusaders.

Nakuru High Court Judge William Ouko dismissed a plea by Mrs Eddah Wanjiru Mbiyu seeking to bar police from linking her to the murder of Moses Ole Mpoe and Parsaaiyia Ole Kitu on December 3 in Nakuru.

The Judge said that issuing orders stopping Police from arresting her would be akin to an abuse of the Court’s powers.

Ouko noted that it was impossible for the Court to determine whether Police had any evidence against the late Minister’s widow until she had formally been charged with any offence.

"Any action by this court to the contrary would amount to a premature trial where there is no accused person," he said in his ruling.

He said the petitioner had failed to show that investigations into the murders would infringe on her constitutional rights and freedoms.

The Judge also rejected an application by her lawyers seeking to extend interim orders prohibiting the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General from orchestrating her arrest pending an appeal before a higher Court.

The widow had through her Lawyer Lawrence Mbaabu and Alice Wahome told the Court that Police were planning to arrest her without having sufficient evidence linking her to the deaths.

She claimed that such an arrest would amount to an arbitrary detention without justifiable cause, which would be an abuse of the state’s powers.

Nakuru District Criminal Investigations Officer Abdi Salat had however opposed Eddah’s application arguing that the police were only interested in investigating the murder and not the sideshows that have characterised the Koinange family’s succession matters for many years.

Eddah is a co-administrator of the expansive 4,923-acre Muthera farm in Mau Narok, which was owned by her late husband.

Other co-administrators include her stepson David Njunu Mbiyu, who has already been charged with two counts of murder over the same incident, David Waiganjo Koinange and Margaret Njeri Mbiyu.

The late Mpoe had been appointed an administrator of the farm in 2008 but was later suspended in June 2010 following disagreements with the family.

Eddah has told the Court that Mpoe refused to obey Court orders barring him and had instead incited his Maasai kinsmen to invade the farm terming it as their ancestral land.