Siaya man in Ethiopian Airlines compensation saga dies by suicide
Brian Aris Kobiero 32, who died by suicide at their home in Sega Ugenya sub-county. He had filed a case before a High Court in SIaya to be recognised as a bona fide husband of the late Christine Tanner.
A Kenyan who filed a petition at the High Court in Siaya seeking to be recognised as the bona fide husband of a Canadian woman who died in a plane crash in Ethiopia has died by suicide at his father’s compound in Sega, Ugenya sub-county.
Brian Aris Kobiero, 32, had claimed that the late Christine Tanner Dawn, who died in the March 10, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines plane crash was his wife.
Ugenya North Senior Chief Joseph Ooko confirmed the incident, saying Mr Kobiero’s body was found hanging from a tree in the family compound Thursday July 14 morning.
“The man’s father found his lifeless body. He was a teacher at Nyang’oma Boys Secondary School in Bondo,” said the administrator.
He added: “The father reported to me that his son had been suffering depression and stress allegedly caused by the family of the late Ms Tanner who had refused to recognise him as a legitimate husband. He decided to take his own life three days after he was discharged from an Eldoret hospital where he had sought treatment.”
Mr Ooko also told the Nation that Mr Obiero had spent the better part of last night with his father before retiring to bed.
Before his death, Mr Kobiero filed a case under a certificate of urgency on March 25, through his lawyer Doreen Musebe, listing Mr Hunter French Tanner, a son of the late Ms Tanner, as the respondent.
He had accused Mr Tanner of refusing to recognise him as the husband of his late mother. Mr Tanner is also the trustee of the estate left by his mother.
Siaya High Court Judge Justice Roselyn Aburili had set September 20 for a pretrial conference.
In his affidavit, Mr Kobiero stated that he met Ms Tanner via LinkedIn in 2016 while searching for a mentor to help him with his master’s thesis on special education. At that time Mr Tanner was the head of the Department of Special Education at Hagersville Secondary School in Canada.
“When she moved to Kenya, they cohabited at Mr Kobiero’s rented premises and later moved to a bigger house in Narok town between 2016-2019,” reads the affidavit.
Customary marriage
Mr Kobiero also claimed that Ms Tanner visited Mr Kobiero’s home in Sega, Siaya County, in August 2017 and was introduced as his wife. That was followed by a traditional Luo marriage ceremony that united the two.
“We agreed and I renovated and re-thatched my house ‘simba’ as required by the Luo traditions of a man ready to marry, she was welcomed and the marriage ceremony was conducted as the culture requires,” he claimed.
On March 10, 2019, when the plane crashed and all the occupants were burned beyond recognition, Mr Kobiero claimed to have buried a ‘yago’ (sausage tree) on the land that his father had allocated for him and his wife. The tree was to signify that the late Ms Tanner had been buried in her matrimonial home in Ugenya.
“Days before the burial of Yago, I spent three nights outside my house as required of a widower under Luo customs of burial rites to signify mourning of the lost loved one. I have not entered into any relationship or been in any intimate affair with any woman ever since I lost my wife,” Mr Kobiero wrote.
Mr Tanner, in his affidavit, rejected the assertions, saying that at the time of his mother’s death she was not married to anyone and nor was she engaged to anyone with a promise of marriage.
He said: “After the extensive DNA examination which was conducted by the Ethiopian Airline Agents and Contractors namely Blake Emergency Services to identify the remains of every individual in the crash and the exercise was concluded in October 2019, my brother Mr Cody Kevin travelled to Addis Ababa to coordinate collection of our mother’s remains and brought them back to Ontario. No remains of my late mother were buried anywhere, not even Kenya.”
