Robert Ouko (politician) - Murder Investigations

Murder Investigations

On 27 January 1990, Ouko, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, left Nairobi as part of a delegation of 83 ministers and officials, among them President Daniel arap Moi, to attend a ‘Prayer Breakfast’ meeting in Washington DC. The delegation arrived back in Nairobi on 4 February. On Monday 5 February Ouko met with President Moi, the Japanese Ambassador, the Canadian High Commissioner, Bethuel Kiplagat (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and Hezekiah Oyugi (Permanent Secretary, Internal Security). Later that day Ouko travelled to his country residence, a farm in Koru (some 300 km from Nairobi) near Kisumu, accompanied by his driver and a bodyguard.

On the night of February 12/13, 1990, Ouko disappeared from his Koru Farm complex near Muhoroni. His housemaid Selina Were Ndalo testified that she "was awakened at about 3am by a noise similar to a door being slammed shut but sufficiently loud enough to startle her awake" and that she saw a white car turning at the bottom of the minister's driveway before driving away.

Francis Cheruyot, a telephonist at Rongo Office, near to the Koru Farm, alleged to Detective Superintendent John Troon of Scotland Yard (see below) that on Tuesday 13 February 1990, at about 6am, he was on duty on the post office telephone switchboard when he saw Hezekiah Oyugi "who was a passenger in a white car containing three other persons" drive past the post office on two occasions but Cheruyot would not make a written statement to this effect. Oyugi was subsequently unable to produce the daily log of his official car.

Ouko's body was found later that morning (February 13) at approximately 1pm by a local herdsboy Joseph Shikuku (also named as 'Shikulu' and Shikuru' in both Troon's and other reports), at the foot of nearby Got Alila Hill, 2.8 km from Ouko's country home, but although he told local villagers of the find (a fact supported by 'statements in support' given to Scotland Yard detectives by six other villagers) they did not report the fact to the police. Ouko’s body was eventually officially discovered on the 16th February, following a police search.

Forensic evidence suggested Ouko had been murdered, near to where his body was found, killed by a single shot to the head, his right leg broken in two places and his body left partially burned. There was evidence that a gun had been discharged at the scene (although the bullet was never found). A "single caucasian hair" was also was found "loosely associated with a partially burnt handkerchief found at the scene". Most of items including a gun, a torch, a diesel can and matches were found nearby. All of the items were subsequently identified as belonging to Dr Ouko and, with the exception of the jerrycan, matches and torch, had usually been kept in his bedroom. News of the murder set off riots in Nairobi.

Initial police reports suggested that Ouko had committed suicide but it soon became common knowledge that Ouko had been shot as well as burnt. Public pressure led President Daniel arap Moi to ask British detectives from New Scotland Yard to investigate Ouko's death.

The following investigation by the Kenyan police was supported by the arrival on 21 February of Detective Superintendent John Troon of Scotland Yard’s International Organised Crime Branch, accompanied by two other detectives and a Home Office forensic pathologist.