Activist’s family seeks independent autopsy, slams abortion claim

kilam · 2019-02-13T16:28:01+00:00

NJOKI KIHIU, NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 13 – The family of the late Dandora activist Caroline Mwatha now wants to conduct their own independent autopsy to ascertain what really killed her. This comes a day after the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti released a report indicating that the activist who went missing on February 6 died while procuring an abortion. Her body was found on Tuesday at the City Mortuary. The DCI said that they retrieved text messages between Mwatha and her boyfriend Alexander Gikonyo as they planned to abort the five-month pregnancy. “It was established that an unidentified doctor had demanded a fee of Sh7,000 and after negotiations the cost was reduced to Sh6,000 which was sent by Alexander,” the DCI statement report said. The family however refuted the claim and accused the police of using abortion as a cover up. According to her father Stanslous Mbai, Mwatha had no reason to abort as she was happily married and with children. “The claim that the police want everyone to believe is a lie; my daughter got married in the church and she has children. If indeed she was pregnant, I am sure she could not even think of abortion,” said Mbai. He further claimed that his daughter’s body had deep cuts on the left thigh which indicated that she could have been tortured before her death. “Why would she even wait for five months to do an abortion if indeed she was pregnant? This is something she could have done during the first month; again, how does abortion relate with the cuts that she has on her thighs?” the father wondered. Mwatha’s husband Joshua Ochieng called for thorough investigations saying there were a lot of inconsistencies in the police accounts. “My brother in-law came here to look for her body and was told she was not here; the name that was registered was Caroline Mbeki then yesterday we discovered that the same person was my wife and the name had been changed to Caroline Mwatha… what changed?” Ochieng questioned. “I have been communicating with my wife on a daily basis even though I have not been in the country. She had nothing to hide from me so if she was pregnant, she could have told me. This whole thing about abortion is a fallacy.” Several activists – including human rights defender Khalid Hussein spent the better part of Wednesday morning at the City Mortuary demanding justice. “We are here in solidarity with Mwatha’s family because we know the kind of a job she was doing and it is so bad that a narrative has already been created to divert attention and we want justice to be served for Mwatha and her family,” Hussein said. At least six people arrested over he murder have appeared in court and will be detained for two more weeks. The six include the owner of the clinic she went for the abortion, the clinic owner’s son, Mwatha’s boyfriend, a doctor, Uber driver Stephen Maina and another suspect identified as Georgia Achieng’ Tabitha. There had been speculation that Mwatha’s disappearance was linked to her work of speaking out against police brutality as extra judicial killings, mainly in Dandora and other slum areas in the Kenyan capital. “That cannot be the case,” the Police Spokesman said, “a post-mortem will be conducted on her body but from information gathered so far by the investigators, the probable cause of her death is known. Activist's family seeks independent autopsy, slams abortion claim » Capital News

Thread starter kilam
Start date Feb 13, 2019

kilam

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Activist’s family seeks independent autopsy, slams abortion claim

kilam

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