The brother of a deceased Karen resident has written to the British Foreign Office to complain about attempted fraud over the dead man’s Sh500 million estate.
Roger Bryan Robson, a single man and Kenyan citizen aged 71 years, died on August 8, 2012. He lived at his Karen house until his death. Robson had made a will in 1997, leaving his estate to relatives and charitable organisations in Kenya involved with environment, wildlife, health and education.
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The principal assets of Robson’s estate were a 5.2-acre property on Ushirika Road, Karen, and a half-acre plot with flats next to the Nairobi Hospital in Upper Hill, together worth at least Sh500 million.
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The executor, lawyer Guy Elms, wanted to pass the Sh500 million estate to the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forestry Service, but since Robson’s death, the Karen property has been occupied multiple times by invaders, including gospel singer Alex Apoko, famously known as Ringtone.
“Mr Elms has been prevented from performing his duties as executor by high-level corruption, life-threatening intimidation and criminal seizure of estate assets,” Michael Robson of Ledbury, Herefordshire, wrote to Tobias Ellwood, a junior minister in the Foreign Office, on November 29.
The letter requested the British government to “provide effective protection to Mr Elms.... who has been held at gunpoint in his home, shot at whilst in his car, and he and members of his business have received death threats on several occasions.”
The letter also requested help “to quash sophisticated attempts by multiple fraudsters to seize illegally two high-value, real-estate assets in Nairobi, which comprise the bulk of my late brother’s estate.”
Robson’s brother alleged the fraudsters are being assisted by “the police, the Land Registry, the Companies Registry and most recently the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, which has ordered Elms’s prosecution. It seems all these bodies are assisting the fraudsters, not the legitimate claimant, my late brother’s executor, Mr Elms”.
The brother said he wanted the estate to be split between his son, only introduced as Oliver, and Kenyan “environmental and educational causes”.
“If the will is cancelled because, as alleged, it’s forged, then the brother is the closest living relative and is entitled to the whole estate,” said a lawyer involved in the case.
“If anyone should claim the will is forged, then it should be the brother, but he says the will is genuine. So why has the DPP not been in contact with Robson’s brother as his next of kin?”
Elms has fought extensive legal battles over the last five years to prevent the fraudulent takeover of the property. So far, all the suits claiming ownership of the two properties have stalled in the civil courts. Both the properties are still occupied by squatters.
Now that the civil cases have stalled, the criminal courts have been dragged into invalidating Robson’s will.
On November 2, Deputy DPP Nicholas Mutuku wrote to the DCI director that there was a prima facie case against Elms. He instructed Elms be charged with forgery of Robson’s will and power of attorney, subject to the DCI obtaining statements from three key witnesses.
A lawyer familiar with the case said he believed a senior police officer is now the driving force behind the attempted takeover of the estate.