From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2013
TAKE2
New evidence shows that former Foreign Affairs minister Robert Ouko’s body was not buried on February 24, 1990, as the public was led to believe. His skull and charred remains were handed over to Dr Ian West, the Scotland Yard pathologist who was part of the team of murder investigators, for forensic examination.
Fourteen years later, as the East African Standard launches its campaign for the reopening of a proper investigation into Dr Ouko’s brutal murder, the whereabouts of his remains are shrouded in mystery.
The East African Standard’s special investigations show that the former minister’s remains were loaded on to British Airways flight on March 5, 1990, long after he was supposed to have been buried. But his remains are not on the list of evidence that was returned to Kenya by Scotland Yard.
There are reports that the British police in their museum of famous murders retained the remains, though there is no evidence of this. This brings us to the big question: “so where are Dr Ouko’s remains”? Another mystery behind Ouko’s remains is that when he was found brutally murdered on February 14, 1990, by herdsboy Shikuku, the boy himself disappeared without trace.
Known simply as Shikuku, his employer, Mzee Kipng’eny Soi, is as much at sea as anyone else is on the whereabouts of his former employee. During an exclusive interview with the East African Standard, Soi recounted for the first time the events surrounding the herdsboy’s mysterious disappearance after discovering Ouko’s burnt body at the foothills of Got Alila (Alila Hill) in Koru.
Soi lives slightly over a half a kilometre away from the site where Ouko’s body was found on the other side of River Nyando. When the East African Standard caught up with him, Soi admitted he was still baffled about what happened.
“I’m still confused as to what really happened. All I know is that the police took him away and then he just vanished. “I’ve waited all these years for him to return but he hasn’t, maybe he will never come back, maybe he is dead,” he said.
Shikuku was out in the field-tending cattle when he spotted smoke billowing from a thicket, upon which he went to investigate and discovered the charred remains of a man. This was days after Ouko went missing in February 1990, and the Government had subsequently launched a massive hunt for the minister.
“(Shikuku) came home and told me he had found a burning body in the fields. At first, I dismissed it as a joke but reality would soon sink in. “Although I had heard about Ouko’s disappearance over the radio, I didn’t expect he would be found dead in the field, much less by my own herdsboy,” said Soi.
And little did he know that Shikuku’s discovery would trigger a chain of events that would lead to the boy’s disappearance and his (Soi’s) protracted brush with the authorities. Soi promptly reported the matter to the area chief, who in turn informed the police.
The police picked up Shikuku, allegedly to show them the spot where Ouko’s body lay. “And that is the last time I saw him,” said Soi. Shikuku would later be seen in the area in the company of the detectives for a few days before he vanished into thin air.
The swift police action to immediately barricade the site where Ouko’s body was found fired off speculation.
No civilian was allowed within a hundred metres of the scene. In fact, very few people around there apart from Shikuku saw the body.
“Besides, if Shikuku’s crime was that he saw the body, it is wrong for the police to have detained or harmed him for that matter, because if Ouko’s body was lying out there, it was bound to be discovered and anyone could have found it,” said Soi.
According to Soi, Shikuku arrived at his home one morning looking for a job and was offered one as a herdsboy, a job he performed for only three months before being taken away by the police.
The only personal details Soi has of the boy was his last name (Shikuku) and where he came from (Kakamega).
Another mystery which remains unresolved till today is the investigations ordered by the former government which did not only get nowhere, but also the man picked as the suspect, former Nakuru DC Jonah Anguka who was acquitted under circumstances that leave a lot to be desired.
Anguka approached Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Bethuel Kiplagat in his office and requested him to transfer his wife to the Kenyan mission in Bonn, Germany. The indications are that Ouko was shot and his body was set on fire in an attempt to destroy it.
Following the linking of some prominent personalities with the murder, the Government dissolved the commission on November 26, 1991, and directed the Commissioner of Police to start further investigations founded on the Troon report.
.A number of people, including Oyugi, Biwott, and Anguka, who had been adversely mentioned in the findings, were arrested between November 20 and 27. Investigations were stepped up to gather evidence sufficient enough to merit prosecution of key suspects, and on December 10, all those who had been arrested, except Anguka, were released.
A chronological report was compiled, giving the finer details of the evidence against the former DC.
February 13, 1990: Anguka’s official car had covered 270km with excess fuel, which he was unable to account for. He explained that his driver might have made a mistake when writing the work ticket.
On the same day, he went to work at 9am, instead of his usual time of 7.30am. Guards at his residence said he had returned home at about 5am. On the same day, at a meeting with Provincial Commissioner Yusuf Haji, Anguka asked for permission to travel to Nairobi, saying he had important issues to tackle at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. The break was granted.
February 14: Anguka approached Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Bethuel Kiplagat in his office and requested him to transfer his wife to the Kenyan mission in Bonn, Germany. He said he was suffering from backache and hoped to use his wife’s privileges as a diplomat to get travel documents and accommodation abroad.
The same day at about 11pm, Anguka telephoned Oyugi at the Rumuruti State Lodge and reported Ouko’s disappearance. The cause of his concern was unclear, considering that the matter had nothing to do with his docket or his administrative area. February 16: The DC is said to have travelled to Nyanza. February 16: Anguka travelled to Koru before Ouko’s body was found.
The purpose of his mission was unclear. On the same day, he broke the news of finding the body to Ouko’s wife in an “inappropriate manner” and in utter disregard to the head of the investigation. Anguka had himself received the news from his wife, who telephoned from Nairobi.
Earlier, when Troon arrived to take over the investigation, Anguka assigned himself the responsibility of acting as his interpreter, while; in fact, a senior police officer had been assigned those duties. The DC also interfered with Nyanza police officers assisting in the investigation, but when complaints were raised, the Nyanza PC ordered him back to his station.
As the commission went on with its work, Anguka summoned Administration Police officers who guarded his Nakuru residence at the time Ouko disappeared and implored them to say he had not left his house at night throughout the week. But the officers stated that he had returned home at dawn on the day Ouko was reported missing. She later died mysteriously in the long saga of unexplained deaths connected to the Ouko murder.
Investigations by Scotland Yard detective John Troon found two empty briefcases at the Ouko home in Koru, believed to have contained the “dossier” the minister intended to hand over to former President Moi. Briner, the sole proprietor of BAK Group of Consultants that featured prominently in the investigations, says that based on investigations conducted by the Scotland Yard, Ouko’s killers may originally not have planned to eliminate him. But his captors went too far in torturing him to force out vital information, or he may have recognised one or several of them thus making his complete elimination inevitable.
It is believed that it is after his captors realised that they had injured him extensively that they made a telephone call, apparently to ask what to do with him. “Maybe it is then that they (captors) were told to finish him,” Briner postulates.
Briner also suspects Dr Ouko’s killers could have been trained hitmen of Eastern European extraction, which possibly explains the Caucasian hair found on Dr Ouko’s body. “This vital finding was never followed up, perhaps because investigators were not allowed to. This is something Troon has also talked about,” Briner noted.
Briner’s view corroborates Jonah Anguka’s observations in his memoir Absolute Power in which it is stated: “The resultant damage was so brutal, that the impression on my mind was that the murderer’s intention was not only to kill, but to totally dismember Bob; to butcher and disfigure him.”
In his book, Absolute Power: The Ouko Murder Mystery, Anguka observed that the deaths were also used to instill fear in the minds of potential witnesses. And, indeed, fear still reigns following the mysterious deaths of key witnesses, numerous death threats and the evident ability of some key witnesses to manipulate information and the justice system.
Some died mysteriously others were threatened while still others encountered a series of dangerous obstacles. Some of the mysterious deaths include the following:
1. Mr Mohammed Aslam: Aged 55 at the time he died in November 1991, Aslam was the chairman of the Pan African Group of Companies that included the Pan African Bank, the Pan African Credit Finance Company and the Corporate Insurance Ltd. Allegations were made against him at the Ouko Commission of Inquiry that he had acted as an intermediary in asking for a kickback in an international business transaction.
The claims came at a time when corruption was being examined as a motive in Ouko’s murder. Aslam was set to appear before the Commission to answer these allegations, and it was expected that he would reveal information about high-level corruption and even drop names of those involved.
But it was not to be. He suddenly fell ill and was admitted to the Nairobi Hospital. His son, Raza, was later to say that at the time of admission, Aslam was complaining of dizziness and general fatigue. Eight days after his death, President Moi dissolved the Commission.
2. Mr Oidho Agalo: He was the son of Mr Zablon Agalo Obonyo, the elderly Administration Police guard attached to Ouko’s Koru home. Oidho, a worker at Dr Ouko’s farm, died quietly at Nyalenda estate in Kisumu before he was called to testify on what he knew of the events on the night Ouko disappeared.
3. Mr Otieno Gor: He was among the few people who saw the minister just before his disappearance. But he died mysteriously before he could testify at the inquiry.
4. Mr Martin Ochanda: He was attached to the Kisumu Special Branch office and was a known friend of Ouko. After the minister’s death, Ochanda was transferred to Nairobi and in December 1991, he fell sick and died a few days later in what was described as a “short illness”.
5. Mr Pius Omollo Ngwaye: He was Mr Jonah Anguka’s personal bodyguard for nearly five years. Soon after Anguka’s arrest, he was also seized and detained by the police. Anguka met Ngwaye at the CID headquarters where they were both being interrogated. “He was in a deplorable state with blood-red eyes and was trembling,” said Anguka in his book. Ngwaye died soon after his release from custody.
6. Mr Joseph Otieno Yogo: He was Ouko’s driver and guard, who drove the minister from Nairobi to Kisumu on February 5 and later returned to Nairobi to fetch Ouko’s wife, Mrs Christabel Ouko. In June 1992, Yogo died at the Mater Hospital in Nairobi following a “short illness”.
7. Mr Joseph Mbogo: He was a Superintendent of Police who took part in the Ouko investigation and later joined the Commission of Inquiry. He died mysteriously and was buried quietly at his farm. The cause of death was not known.
8. Master Paul Shikuku: The then 16-year-old houseboy who first saw the charred remains of Ouko burning at the foothills of Got Alila. He disappeared mysteriously before testifying at the Commission and his whereabouts remain unknown.
9. Mr James Eric Onyango: Was a relative and confidante of Ouko and was among the few people the minister talked to on phone just before he disappeared. He also died mysteriously.
10. Mr Hezekiah Nelson Oyugi: Was a long-time Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President in charge of Provincial Administration and Internal Security. He was named as one of the principal suspects in the Ouko murder. He died of a brain ailment after his release from custody.
11. Mr Masinde Muliro: A day before Oyugi’s body was brought home from London, the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford) founder member and vice-chairman, Mr Masinde Muliro, travelled to and from the UK on the same flight with then Cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott.
Muliro reportedly met with a former police officer, Mr George Wajakoyah, who had made sensational allegations over the Ouko murder. Muliro returned home on August 14, 1992 aboard a British Airways flight from London. He collapsed and died as he was clearing at the Customs.
12. Mr Nehemiah Shikuku Obati: A senior Assistant Commissioner of Police, he spearheaded the arrest and interrogation of the chief suspects in the Ouko murder, among them Biwott. But after this, Obati was removed from the CID Headquarters and transferred to a junior posting in Nakuru. In August 1992, Obati fell ill and was admitted to the Nairobi Hospital. He died a few days later from what was described as liver failure.
13. Mr Philip Kilonzo: He was the Police Commissioner at the time of the Ouko murder. The police force was severely criticised for not doing enough to bring the culprits to book. Instead, it was obstructing investigating teams such as the Scotland Yard. He was replaced as commissioner in 1993. In 1997, he collapsed and died at his hotel in Machakos amid allegations of foul play, which the authorities immediately denied. But the cause of his death still remains a mystery to this day.
14. Mr Justice Fidahussein Abdullah: He presided over the trial of former Nakuru DC, Jonah Anguka, who had been charged with Ouko’s murder. He died mysteriously just before he delivered his ruling. It was understood that in his ruling, he was set to free Anguka and criticise the manner in which the government was handling the murder case.
15. Ms Susan Aloo Seda: Ouko’s mother, Susan, also died mysteriously. Another one was Selina Were who was Ouko’s maid and a star witness at the inquiry. The last time she featured in public was in December, 1991, when she was released from custody. Nobody seems to know what became of her since, though there were rumours that she had died. Later on there has been information that Selina is actually alive, only that she had gone underground after threats were made on her life.
The allegations of corruption concerning the Kisumu molasses plant and Dr Ouko’s efforts to expose those behind the scandal are cited as the most potent motive for his assassination. Based on evidence presented by two directors of the Swiss-based BAK group whose efforts to revive the Kisumu molasses plant were frustrated by senior Kenyan government officials, the report outlines the dispute between Dr Ouko and these government officials and describes his efforts to prepare a dossier about their activities for presentation to President Moi.
In conclusion, the Troon report strongly recommended:
1. That a full and impartial investigation be implemented into the allegations made by the BAK directors against some senior government personnel. These allegations in my view have some bearing to the death of Dr Ouko.
2. All senior government officials and civil servants should be interviewed in relation to the Washington visit and their knowledge of what may have transpired between Dr Ouko and other colleagues. The visit to Washington in my opinion also has some bearing on the cause of Dr Ouko’s death.
3. Full enquiries should be undertaken to establish the truth surrounding the allegations that files and papers were taken from the Minister’s Koru farm which subsequently disappeared, and established the details of those files and papers.
4. Additional full enquiries should be made to obtain any evidence from Special Branch officers in relation to their interviews with possible witnesses in relation to the death of Dr Ouko, particularly those persons who gave interviews in the “rumour mongering” detentions.
5. Enquiries and further interviews should also take place to establish beyond doubt the movements and alibis of Mr Oyugi, his driver and bodyguard from to February 9 to 13, inclusive.
6. Enquiries must also be made to fully establish the alibi put forward by Mr Joab Omino, and any connection that he and/or Mr Biwott may have with the Muhoroni sugar complex- Signed: John Troon, Detective Superintendent SO1.
Continues tomorrow
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002