Kenya’s most famous white farmer went on trial for murder on Monday accused of shooting dead a black Kenyan for poaching on his land.
Thomas Cholmondeley — 38-year-old great grandson of Lord Delamere, one of the original British settlers in Kenya — has pleaded ”not guilty” to the murder of Robert Njoya, a local stonemason he accuses of hunting animals on his land.
The case has stirred simmering animosities, dating back to the East African nation’s colonial times, over race and ownership inequities. Rights groups have called it a case ”between the haves and have-nots”.
Addressing a packed High Court, Kenya’s director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, said: ”We shall prove the accused has no legally recognised justification or excuse for causing the death of the deceased.”
Cholmondeley’s arrest in May came nearly a year after prosecutors dropped charges against him for killing a wildlife ranger. He admitted shooting Samson ole Sisina, but denied murder, saying he thought Sisina was a robber.
His acquittal then sparked protests.
The tall aristocrat, who has been detained in Nairobi’s Kamiti maximum prison since his arrest, sat pensively in handcuffs in the dock between two prison wardens.
Wearing a khaki-coloured linen suit, blue shirt, tie and cowboy boots, he sometimes closed his eyes as Tobiko spoke.
Cholmondeley has told police he was taking an evening walk on his farm when he and a friend ran into five men armed with machetes, bows and arrows, carrying a dead impala.
When the men were asked to stop, the men set dogs on the pair. Cholmondeley then shot the dogs and Njoya, police said.
‘Happy valley’
The chief prosecutor said he would present evidence to show Njoya was killed by a single gunshot wound to the pelvis fired from a rifle meant for game hunting. He said Njoya was running away when he was shot, posing no threat to Cholmondeley.
”We shall prove that the accused was not under any attack or threat from the deceased … In firing the gunshots, the accused had intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm to the deceased,” Tobiko said.
Sarah Njoya, the 28 year-old wife of the deceased, identified a dirty faded black T-shirt and a tattered jacket as the clothes her husband was wearing when he was shot.
Cholmondeley’s parents and other relatives were also present in the court in Nairobi.
Hundreds of Kenyans protested after the killing and called for white settlers to be removed from Kenya’s lush highlands where resentment runs high over inequities in land ownership.
It is especially visible in Naivasha, where Cholmondeley runs his 22 260ha Soysambu Ranch, teeming with eland, zebra and giraffes, surrounded by foreign-owned flower farms drawing dirt-poor workers living in nearby slums.
His family have lived in Kenya for more than a century and maintained close links with the government before and after independence from Britain in 1963.
The Delameres’ flamboyant lifestyle, along with that of other wealthy settlers, gave rise to them being dubbed the ”Happy Valley” crowd, notorious for their sexual affairs and gin-soaked exploits. — Reuters