Medical practitioners, crime investigators and the political elite agree that death investigations in Kenya are often poorly conducted and have in the past even been part of politically motivated cover-ups.
Errors and oversights in autopsies of prominent leaders often fuel conspiracy theories about assassination plots. The Kilonzo family appears to believe involving a foreign expert will clear the post-mortem exercise of any suspicions of a cover-up should foul play be ruled out.
“We had to get a foreign expert… to clear any doubts… because of the history we have in this country,” Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama, who is heading the burial committee, told journalists on Tuesday.
Kilonzo’s death occurred barely a week after a Commission of Inquiry into the helicopter crash that killed former Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and five others made public its findings. While concluding the deaths were “most probably” a result of injuries sustained in a crash in bad weather, the team accused Chief Government pathologist Johansen Oduor and his team of “professional negligence” in the way they handled their post mortem exams. Odour and his team reached their decision based on injuries they could see and did not wait for toxicology reports to confirm their conclusions. (The toxicology reports appear to support the pathologists’ findings with only the unusually high-level of carbon monoxide in one pilot’s body remaining unexplained.)
Before the former Justice and Education ministers’ family called in a British expert, Dr Oduor had been lined up to carry out the autopsy. However, this was delayed to await Dr Ian Calder, an expert in sudden and unexpected deaths.
Capt Werunga Simiyu, a security and crime scene expert, says that the presence of Dr Calder reflects a vote-of-no-confidence in local experts among the public.
“The family wants to pre-empt any possibility of foul-play,” says Capt Werunga, the chief executive of African Centre for Security and Strategic Studies. “Remember the death comes at a time when the country is still coming to terms with the Supreme Court’s ruling (on presidential election petitions) and the release of a report on the death of former ministers George Saitoti and Orwa Ojode. The British pathologist will ensure expectations are managed well.”
He points out accurate autopsy investigations would enable crime investigators formulate theories on whether Mutula’s death was an outcome of suicide or homicide. In either case, the investigators would want to establish the motive and the opportunity to execute the motive. Pathologists on Wednesday said that the results of the autopsy would be withheld for eight to ten weeks until the Government Chemist completes toxicology reports on over 100 samples, 52 of them collected from Mutula’s body.
In the Saitoti investigation, only about six samples were taken from each of the bodies at the crime scene and in the autopsy.
A few dozen other items were also tested before a report was completed about four weeks after the samples were taken. The probe chaired by Deputy Chief Justice-designate of the Supreme Court Kalpana Rawal was unflattering in its conclusions on the exercise. It observed: “The final reports were arrived at without the consultation of all the participating pathologists. They also did not take into consideration toxicological examination reports.... Due to the lack of coordination among the relevant Government departments dealing with the post-mortem examinations and tests, it is possible that crucial evidence was lost that could have helped the Commission arrive at conclusive observations on the cause of death.”
More significantly, it adds: “The commission inferred professional negligence in the way the post-mortem and toxicological processes were handled.”
During the hearings, Dr Oduor was put to task over his instructions to colleagues, which his juniors said might have compromised investigations. One colleague said he claimed the National Intelligence Service had an interest in the case. The inquiry did not recall Oduor to answer questions about these hearsay claims.
Speaking when he disclosed that the family had invited an independent expert from the UK to perform the autopsy, Muthama hinted that the move was due to reservations about autopsies such as the ones performed on former Foreign minister Robert Ouko in 1991 and on British tourist Julie Ward in 1988. While both were obviously murdered, Ouko’s pathologist suggested a bizarre suicide theory while Ward’s report was changed to reflect an animal attack. Other autopsies that have also raised controversy in the past are those of Catholic clergyman, Fr John Kaiser, shot dead in 2000 in Naivasha and that of marathoner Samuel Wanjiru, who died of head injuries in 2011.
The abrupt death of opposition leader Masinde Muliro at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in 1992 and that of Kwanza MP George Kapten in 2002 also generated speculation.
Dr Enock Kibunguchy sees the doubts these incidents created as worrying for the medical profession in Kenya.
“For somebody to come from outside Kenya to do a post-mortem points to weaknesses that call for a rethink on how we do things,” says Dr Kibunguchy, a medical doctor and Member of Parliament for Likuyani. He is also a former assistant minister for Health.
“There is no doubt that my colleagues are some of the best-trained personnel in human pathology in the country. However, we must also bear in mind they have to make do with poor equipment. In the absence of facilities such as forensic laboratories for proper analysis evidence, there are bound to be serious mistakes that precipitate misgivings.”
-Standard Digital
