Kenya: Ngugi Case Was an Acid Test for Judicial System

The Nation (Nairobi)

OPINION
December 16, 2006
Posted to the web December 16, 2006

Peter Mwaura
Nairobi

It was a cause celebre. The world watched the trial of Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o's nephew John Kiragu Chege and three younger-looking, athletic and darker men the police claimed he had hired to attack the writer and his wife.

Prof Ngugi, returning home after 22 years in exile, was robbed, severely beaten and burned with cigarettes and his wife raped on the night of August 11, 2004.

The trial was an acid test of our judicial system. The case moved through the court system with the pace of a tortoise. It took more than two years to hear and determine. And it did not put to rest the conspiracy theories it had raised.

Yes, we do now know from the judgment delivered this week, that Prof Ngugi's nephew was not guilty as charged. But we don't know why the three convicted men attacked Kenya's beloved son, unless we accept the robbery motive. The three will take their dark secrets to the gallows.

Appear for the hearing

The case had a rocky passage from start to finish. Defence lawyers almost succeeded in getting the case dismissed under section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which requires the court to acquit the accused if the complainant does not appear for the hearing.

The Ngugis did not appear in court on October 25, 2004, when the case was first scheduled for hearing.

What saved the court from a washout was the discretion given to the magistrate not to acquit if" for some reason" she thinks it proper to adjourn the hearing until some other date. Mercifully, the code does not define "for some reason," so any reason will do.

The police took the view that the crime was not politically motivated but many people, including Prof Ngugi himself, thought otherwise. "It wasn't a simple robbery. It was political - whether by remnants of the old regime or part of the new state outside the main current," he told the Press.

"They hung around as though waiting for something, and the whole thing was meant to humiliate, if not eliminate, us."

There were also claims by a defence lawyer the Ngugis were trailed by undercover intelligence officers throughout their visit to Kenya, reinforcing the conspiracy theory of a vampire state or gangster state out to settle old scores (even without the knowledge of those currently in power).

We were also told by the police that the four accused were in the company of others who are still at large.

The case spawned many other conspiracy theories including a family vendetta, a staged (but botched) circumcision ceremony, and a weird publicity stunt intended to boost Ngugi's new and voluminous Gikuyu-language novel, Murogi wa Kagogo.

There was also drama, mostly played outside the courtroom. And Prof Ngugi's wife, a woman who speaks straight from the heart, taught the women of Kenya how to hit back.

She showed tremendous courage in not hiding her pain. When her doctors tried to use a euphemism for rape, a tearful Njeeri decried the attempt.

"It was not 'attempted rape', he penetrated me and any time that happens to a woman, it is rape. There is no other word," she said at a news conference.

Njeeri explained to relatives and friends why she went public with the rape. She could not feed the silence that accompanies rape.

Testify in camera

In court, she chose to testify in camera not only because it is her right to do so but also to illustrate to Kenyan women that they can demand that the law protect them from "a second and public rape at the hands of the defence."

Defence lawyers, in an effort to show that no rape took place, typically make rape victims relieve their experiences through cross-examination.

Njeeri further demonstrated her courage at the police identification parade.

Weeping, she reportedly slapped one of the more heavily built suspect after identifying him as the one who raped her, grabbed him by his collar and snapped: "You dared rape me in front of my husband? I am gonna see where you will end your life with what you did to me."

That, senior principal magistrate Julie Oseko decided, will be in death row at Kamiti prison.

Talk about drama. For more about Ngugi wa'Thiong'o click here.