Kenya's first lady spared prosecution

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 5/19/05 | Tom Maliti - AP

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Two powerful defendants, two courtrooms, two similar outcomes: Charges are dropped in high-profile cases that moved even a magistrate to wonder aloud at the state of justice in this former British colony.

In one, a court dropped murder charges against the grandson of one of Kenya's first white settlers who was accused of killing an African game warden and member of the tribe that says its lands were taken by the settler family a century earlier.

In the other, Attorney General Amos Wako said neither police nor prosecutors had had time to investigate whether Kenya's first lady, Lucy Kibaki, slapped a news cameraman during a confrontation over what she considered unfair media coverage of her family. That decision came even though the assault - on World Press Freedom Day earlier this month - had been televised.

Senior Principal Magistrate Rosemelle Mutoka said Wednesday that though she had reservations, she was bound by law to accept Wako's request to drop the assault charges against Kibaki.

But she added that "the court feels it tramples on the rights of the vulnerable, the downtrodden and the helpless in the society."

In the Nakuru High Court, about 100 miles northwest of Nairobi, Judge Muga Apondi accepted another Wako request in the settler's case. The attorney general said Tuesday that there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute Thomas Patrick Gilbert Cholmondeley for the April 19 killing of a Kenya Wildlife Service warden investigating possible poaching on the rancher's land.

Apondi said that though there was no way for him to verify Wako's conclusions, the law allowed the attorney general to terminate a criminal case at any stage.

Whatever the merits of Wako's conclusions, the Kenya Human Rights Commission was struck by how quickly he had reached them when so many other Kenyans are languishing in jail waiting for his office to proceed.

"The law should apply equally to all - both to the rich and to the poor, both to black and to white citizens," said spokeswoman Cynthia Mugo.

While Kenyan law professors and political scientists lamented the outcomes, and called for reform, some were unwilling to await any possible official response.

In the rancher case, where the victim was a Maasai gamekeeper, the Maasai tribe planned to protest Cholmondeley's release by blocking all roads leading to the world renowned Masai Mara Game Reserve on Saturday, according to a tribal leader.

"That a white man can commit such a heinous crime with impunity against a government officer on duty and walk away unpunished in independent Kenya is hard to believe," said Martin Ole Kamwaro, a Maasai lawyer.

Cholmondeley's prominence and history had drawn attention to the case. His grandfather, Britain's Lord Delamare, was one of the first white settlers in Kenya. Cholmondeley also owns one of the biggest ranches in Kenya, producing meat, milk and corn.

Last month, a Maasai tribal leader accused Cholmondeley's family of oppressing his people for generations and threatened to lead an invasion of Cholmondeley's ranch in retaliation for the warden's death.

The Maasai claim that land occupied by Kenya's white settlers and their families was stolen from them in 1904, soon after Britain colonized the country. Kenya gained independence in 1963, but the Maasai say that successive governments have done nothing to address their grievances. Last year they launched a campaign to reclaim their land using peaceful, legal means.

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Kenya's First Lady, Lucy Kibaki holds the Standard newspaper with her in the lead story in this May 3, 2005 file photo in the Daily Nation's office after she stormed the newspaper's office. A judge dropped assault charges against Lucy Kibaki on Wednesday May 18, 2005 after she was accused of slapping a television journalist on World Press Freedom Day. (AP Photo/Nation HO/File)

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fyi

[kx9088]

Lucy or Luke? Or maybe "Lucy formerly known as Luke"?