Why body of retired police officer has been lying in the morgue since 2021
The family of the deceased has said they will only bury him when justice is served.
What you need to know:
- Paul Ruto Kipchabas, a father of six, died on March 23, 2021 at the age of 65.
- Family of the deceased says they are not in a hurry to bury him until they get justice.
When the Kombo family voluntarily donated their 10-acre ancestral land in 1972 to pave the way for the construction of a primary school, they had no idea that they had just sealed a deal for a land dispute that would result in a series of court cases years later.
It is the reason the body of their kin, retired police officer Paul Ruto Kipchabas, 65, who was buried on the disputed portion of land in Koroto village, Baringo North was exhumed.
The body of the retired police officer has since April 8, 2021, been lying at the Baringo County Referral Hospital mortuary in Kabarnet. The father of six died on March 23, 2021.
The Kombo family's predicament started in 2020 when a group of professionals and the community decided to start a secondary school in the locality.
According to the family, without consulting them, the group had assigned 12 acres of its land adjacent to Koroto Primary School for the secondary school project.
The primary school sits where the family had donated land five decades ago, claimed David Kipchabas, the family spokesperson.
After his retirement from the police service in 2020, the family claimed their deceased kin had tried to reclaim the land and pleaded with the professionals not to turn their ancestral land into a public utility, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, as the community went ahead with the secondary school project.
“In 1972, our family donated more than 10 acres to the community to allow them to build Koroto Primary School and more than 12 acres adjacent to it remained. We were perturbed that in February 2020, a group of professionals annexed the remaining land without our consent and constructed Koroto Secondary School on it,” said Mr Kipchabas.
“The deceased tried to reclaim the encroached ancestral land in vain. Months later, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. But before his death, he insisted that he should be buried on the same land,” he claimed.
In an affidavit under ELC case no 1/2021 seen by Nation.Africa, the retired officer had before his death filed a suit at the Kabarnet Law Court accusing the respondents - Koroto Primary and Secondary School Board of Management, Baringo County government, and the Baringo County Land Adjudication officer of invasion, and maliciously turning his land into a public utility.
He told the court that his grandfather had donated approximately 10 acres to the primary school in 1972.
To fulfill his wishes, the family on the night of March 25 resorted to burying Paul Kipchabas at the school compound, just a few meters from newly constructed classrooms, a move that sparked outrage among locals who termed the move as ‘culturally incorrect’ and wayward.
Then Koroto Primary School head teacher Zacharia Kipkebut moved to court seeking orders to compel the widow of the retired officer, Ms Veronicah Mengich, and her son, Kimator Ruto, to look for alternative land to bury their kin as authorised by the public health office who had visited the school and issued a notice to the school management to have the remains exhumed.
The public health office termed the presence of the grave at the school compound as a ‘nuisance’, stating that it would expose learners to health risks and psychological trauma.
Following the orders issued at the Kabarnet Law Court, the body was exhumed from the school compound on April 8 under tight police security and moved to the Kabarnet Hospital morgue to give the family time to identify an alternative land to bury their kin. He has, however, never been re-buried since then.
His family moved to the Environment and Land Court in Iten in 2022 to petition the case.
In her judgment on September 22, 2022, High Court Judge Lydia Waithaka ruled in favour of the 14 petitioners, terming as unlawful, arbitrary unreasonable, and contrary to good governance the move by the Baringo county government, the second respondent and other interested parties in the case to adjudicate, demarcate, and register the petitioners’ and 821 other registered members of lands in Bartum Adjudication Section as plot number one to 77.
She also ruled that the move was without regard to the petitioners’ legitimate expectation of a fair administrative action.
“A permanent injunction restraining the second respondent and the interested parties by themselves and their employees or servants from registering, alienating, dealing with, or engaging in construction activities, transferring or evicting the petitioners from their parcels of land,” said Judge Waithaka.
“A declaration that the purported adjudication and demarcation process carried out between 2015 and 2018 of parcels numbers one to 77 Bartum adjudication section is unlawful, illegal, null and void.”
She also ruled that the costs of the petition be awarded to the petitioners.
However, the respondents appealed the ruling, and the verdict is scheduled for May this year.
The deceased officer’s family says they are not in a hurry to bury him until they get justice.
“We know that we went against the cultural norms by not re-burying our kin but we defied this to fulfill his wishes. We have gone through many tribulations but we are not going back in the fight to reclaim our land,” Mr Kipchabas said.
“We have no other alternative land and we will inter him in the same grave where he had been buried in 2021 unless we are compensated by the school fully,” he stated.
The family claimed that the move by the school to exhume the deceased’s body three years ago subjected them to a lot of suffering and psychological torture.
“We are perturbed that our generosity five decades ago to donate land for a primary school has come to haunt us to an extent that the community forcefully grabbed our remaining portion in the name of setting up a secondary school, worse still, exhuming the remains of our own,” Mr. Kipchabas said.
“We voluntarily gave out the ten acres in the past and wonder why they are abusing our generosity by annexing the remaining land in the name of setting up a school. That is uncouth,” protested Mr Kipchabas.
According to the family spokesman, the aging mother of the deceased has been asking why her son is still lying in the morgue, which is against the community’s customs and even suffered a stroke.
“It is sad that a group of people ganged up against us to defeat justice. We, however, want this to serve as a lesson to the community that nobody should forcefully take what belongs to someone else without following due process,” said the family spokesperson.
