•The often told story of Ouko’s murder became so widely believed that few people bothered to challenge it. Over the years fabricated, fanciful, even quite absurd tales have been added to the narrative.
Image: STAR FILE
If you think you already know who killed Dr Robert Ouko, Kenya’s Minister of Foreign Affairs murdered 30 years ago and there’s no point investigating the matter further, or he should just be allowed to rest in peace, turn the page. But before you do, consider this: in my opinion Ouko’s murderers are almost certainly still alive.
The often told story of Ouko’s murder became so widely believed that few people bothered to challenge it. Over the years fabricated, fanciful, even quite absurd tales have been added to the narrative.
When witnesses challenged the testimony of ‘perjurers and liars’ the latter were believed. ‘Hearsay’, ‘tenuous’ and ‘circumstantial’ evidence was given credence over tangible facts and the testimony of professionals, experts and reliable eye witnesses. Often little or no attempt was made to verify facts or to look into the background of key witnesses and the veracity of their testimony.
This all resulted in a tissue of lies, unsubstantiated testimony and provably untrue theories becoming accepted as fact and widely believed as the truth: how could this have ever happened?
FLAWED INVESTIGATIONS
Part of the answer lies in the conduct a series of deeply flawed and even scandalous investigations and inquiries into Ouko’s murder.
Investigations by New Scotland Yard, the Kenya Police, a Public Inquiry, a Parliamentary Select Committee, and a case review by the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, all demonstrated varying degrees of ineptitude, lack of due process and even outright skulduggery.
TROON OF THE YARD
The first of these investigations was undertaken by Detective Superintendent John Troon who headed a team of detectives from New Scotland Yard’s International and Organised Crime Branch, who together with a UK Home Office Forensic Pathologist Dr Iain West arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the early morning of 21st February 1990, five days after Ouko’s body had been found by the Kenyan police on the morning of Friday 16th.
Troon was only given the task of leading the investigation by chance because his name was at the top of that day’s duty roster. He had never been to Kenya or indeed anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Troon and his team arrived in Nairobi to be met by the District Commissioner for Nakuru Jonah Anguka and Alexander Oyiolo described as a Senior Protocol Officer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
DR WEST’S ANALYSIS
That afternoon Dr West, in the company of Troon and Detective David Sanderson, observed by Anguka and the Kenyan pathologist Dr Jason Kaviti conducted an autopsy on Ouko’s body.
Dr West’s forensic examination found that Ouko had been killed by a single shot to the head and his body set on fire [using diesel] after death when the body was lying down. The legs and body had been severely burnt but not the face.
West also found a three inch bruise on Dr Ouko’s right arm and a double break of the lower tibia and fibula just above his right ankle.
He also noted that a single Caucasian hair was found ‘loosely associated’ with a partially burnt handkerchief found at the scene.
West’s autopsy report concluded: ‘… the indications are, from pathological findings… That the deceased was shot by another individual after breaking his right ankle, possibly as the result of a fall whilst trying to escape… In my opinion the suspicious death of Dr Ouko should be investigated as one of homicide’.
SHOT AT GOT ALILA
The next day, Troon and his team arrived at the scene of the murder again accompanied by Anguka and Oyiolo.
There they discovered a mark on a branch that was later confirmed to be a bullet mark, a few feet from where Ouko’s body had been found
This together with the post mortem, supported the view that Dr Ouko’s body could have been moved after he was shot BUT crucially, given the blood flow on his face and the position of the body in relation to the bullet mark on the branch, moved by only a few feet.
In his Final Report Troon concluded: “There is no evidence to suggest that Dr Ouko had died at any other venue than the scene, although as stated previously, he could have been injured or incapacitated elsewhere”.
Ouko was last seen alive in the early hours of Tuesday 13th by his household and farm staff and his burning body found at the latest about 1pm the same day by a teenage herdsboy (although the authorities were not informed) at the foot of Got Alila some 2.4 kilometers from the farm.
Here are two facts that we know, and others should have known from the beginning: Robert Ouko was shot where his body was found, some time on the morning of 13th February, 1990.
LAST JOURNEY
Ouko’s maid Selina Were told Troon that somewhere around 3am that morning she was awakened by a ‘noise similar to a door being slammed’. She got up and went outside to see a ‘white car’ turning at the bottom of the Minister’s driveway. She then saw the car turn left on to the Koru-Muhoroni road until its lights disappeared.
At the point where the lights would have disappeared there is a left turn on to an unmade track leading to Got Alila where Ouko’s body was found.
I have walked and driven along that track many times. It is in parts narrow, steep and rutted and there are no lights anywhere. It is not a track you would want to drive down in the dark unless you knew where you were going.
Of course Ouko may have not been in that car, Selina Were didn’t claim to have actually seen him get in, but if not the ‘white car’ another vehicle transported him to the foot of Got Alila where he was murdered that morning.
Either way of this I have little or no doubt, that someone in the vehicle that transported Ouko to the murder site knew the local ground very well and was not a stranger to the area.
PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Over the past 12 years investigating the murder of Dr Robert Ouko I have gathered thousands of pages of testimony and evidence, interviewed over 100 people (including three who were reported to be ‘mysteriously dead’), made multiple searches through Freedom of Information legislation in the United States and the UK revealing previously secret diplomatic telexes, and scoured the archives in Kenya.
Following the airing in February 2017 of the six-part documentary Who Killed Dr Robert Ouko and Why? based on my research, further information and evidence was proffered to me by people who had seen the series and yet more is found or comes forward every week.
Now at the 30th anniversary of Dr Robert Ouko’s murder surely it is time to at least try to put the record straight.
Reconciliation requires truth. The truth may yet be established. And if I’m right that his killers are still alive, then justice too may yet be served.
Martin Minns produced the documentary Murder at Got Alila: Who killed Dr Robert Ouko and why?