Kenya’s chief prosecutor told the murder trial of one of the country’s best-known white aristocrats on Monday that Eton-educated Thomas Cholmondeley deliberately shot a man for poaching and then tried to cover up his crime.
Cholmondeley (38) the sole heir to the vast estates in Kenya’s Rift Valley of his parents, Lord and Lady Delamere, denies murdering a 37-year-old stonemason, Robert Njoya. He could face the death penalty if he is convicted.
The trial is politically charged because it is the second time in little more than a year that Cholmondeley has faced a murder charge for killing a black man, and because it touches on sensitivities about large landholdings remaining in the hands of the descendants of white colonists.
In his opening statement, the director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, said the evidence would show that Cholmondeley had deliberately shot at Njoya and two other men who encroached on to his 22 600ha estate in search of game.
”The accused attacked the deceased and his companions as a retaliation or revenge for trespassing and poaching on his land,” Tobiko said. ”The accused intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm to the deceased or the deceased’s companions. The accused knew or ought to have known that the natural consequence of his action would be death.”
The prosecutor said that after Cholmondeley shot the poacher and two of his dogs, he sought to cover up the circumstances. ”In an attempt to conceal his crime, or hinder investigators, the accused tampered with the scene after shooting the deceased and two dogs.”
Tobiko described how on the day of the killing in May, Njoya and his companions had ventured on to Cholmondeley’s estate to check illegal snares they had set to catch game. The men were armed with machetes, clubs and a spear and were accompanied by six dogs.
Cholmondeley had caught up with the men after they found a gazelle in a snare and began butchering it. The prosecution alleges that at that point he opened fire with intent to kill.
Tobiko said Njoya had been running away when he was shot dead, and that Cholmondeley ”was not under any attack from the deceased or any of his companions”.
Cholmondeley sat on a bench between two prison officers and frequently closed his eyes during testimony. He was watched from the public gallery by his mother and father.
Before the trial he said he opened fire because the poachers’ dogs were attacking him, and that he had accidentally hit Njoya. Njoya’s widow, Sarah, who has four young children, told the court that when her husband did not return home that evening she presumed he had been arrested for poaching and went to a local police station in search of him.
”He never came back. I waited all night and he never came,” she said in a barely audible voice. She only discovered what had happened when she identified his body at the morgue.
Although Cholmondeley is on trial for murder, the judge — who is advised by three lay assessors — can convict him on a lesser charge such as manslaughter.
Last year Cholmondeley was charged with murder after he shot dead a government wildlife ranger in pursuit of poachers on Delamere land. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
White landowners have complained of increasing crime in rural areas of Kenya. In January this year, the British wildlife filmmaker, Joan Root, was shot dead in her home in the Rift Valley.
The Delameres were perhaps the most prominent of the group of aristocrats who began colonising the Rift Valley early in the last century. They wrested large tracts of land from the Masai and turned the valley into a playground for the rich, giving rise to the tag Happy Valley. After independence, the clan kept most of its lands, currying favour with successive governments.
The trial continues on Tuesday. – Guardian Unlimited Â