I did not kill Joy Adamson

In 1980, 17 year-old Paul Nakware Ekai was about to marry the girl his parents had chosen for him. But Joy Adamson, the conservationist who had adopted him, insisted that the marriage could only take place when he was 18. A few months later, Adamson was killed. And life has never been the same for Ekai. He spoke with CYRUS KINYUNGU at Kamiti maximum prison.

Forty two year-old Paul Nakware Ekai, half of whose life has been spent within four grey prison walls, swears he did not murder renowned conservationist Joy Adamson. But he might as well tell that to the birds.

Three presidents later, Ekai is still unlucky. The prerogative of presidential clemency to set free even the nastiest of criminals has eluded him.

Last week, we found a relaxed Ekai at Kamiti Maximum Prison, which has become something of a home to him. As a trustee, Ekai sleeps on a bed which some of the poorly paid prison warders wouldn’t mind.

The teenage ambience in his room  — pop stars and Saturday Magazine pin ups of models adorn the walls — certainly robs prison  some of its sting. 

This is especially true for Ekai being a trustee — prison lingo for head prisoner in the positive sense of the word.  Trustee or no trustee, Ekai is among the longest serving prisoners in Kenya probably second to the holder of the dubious title, who has done 27 years in jail.

The boy from Isiolo was detained at presidential pleasure in 1980 after being convicted of killing the conservationist. At the time, he was 17 and therefore a minor, which meant he could not be hanged.

Ekai looks back at the events that led to his arrest and eventual jailing with a heavy heart.

Born in April 17, 1963, in Checheles village in Isiolo District to Chief Ekai Lokior, the boy grew up knowing Joy Adamson as his mother. Such was the friendship between his family and Joy that his parents gave her his older sister to live with as a daughter since Joy’s only company were orphaned lions and leopards.

The sister got married and Joy came calling again.

"It was then that my parents handed me to Joy to replace my sister. I was too young to know what was happening though I was in class four". 
Ekai grew up treating Joy as his mother. "I used to call her Mum," he says today.

While living with Joy at the Shaba Game Reserve, he would accompany her to visit her parents in Isiolo. "I lived with her not as a worker but as a son. She didn’t pay me any salary," he insists.

After several months in the camp, Ekai would take several days off to visit his family. It was during one such absence, he says, that Joy was murdered.

"I had gone to Baragoi to visit my brother who was teaching at Nashola Primary School when Joy was killed," he recalls.

Ekai remembers that it was during his visit to Baragoi that Ngorokos raided nearby manyattas and, being one of the few energetic boys, he joined two others to report the raid to a nearby police station.
 
It was a quirk of fate that would change his life for worse. Upon giving his name at the police station, he was immediately arrested. 

"Had I been the one who killed Joy, I wouldn’t have been that foolish to present myself to the police.”

He would be taken to Isiolo Police Station, where he was quizzed about Joy Adamson. According to him, that was when he knew of her death. "I was so shocked that I was unable to eat for two days. I really loved Joy.”

He remembers her as a loving woman and a close friend who used to buy him clothes, cameras and radios whenever she went to the UK. “ She really treated me like a son… my tent used to be next to hers,” he recalls.

However, there were times when Joy the generous became waspish. 
“Sometimes she would draw her gun to threaten her workers when there was a problem.”  That usually happened when their pay was delayed as she had to collect cash from Nairobi.

Ekai knew when to take cover at a nearby workers’ camp until her temper subsided.

Having lived with Joy for many years, Ekai understood her and disagreements were rare. "We never had any serious disagreement with mum". 

At Kamiti, Ekai sports the dark blue Khaki uniform reserved for trustee inmates, a gold ring, a watch and black leather boots.

This well-groomed prisoner recalls Joy buying a lion cab, Elsa, from Boran herders for only Sh2.

It is this cub that later thrust the conservationist into the limelight and also became the subject of her book, Born Free, and a similarly named film.

Ekai says that together with Joy they brought up the cub until it was matured into a mother.

It was, when Joy met George Adamson that the movie was shot. Ekai wrestle with lions in the movie.

According to Ekai, the couple quarrelled over the proceeds from the movie with Joy insisting that the lions were hers and George claiming he shot the movie.

Finally, George left with the lions and went to Kora in Garissa while Joy was left at Shaba with all the cash, recalls Ekai. At Shaba, Joy cared for orphaned leopards and trained conservationists on wildlife management.

One such trainee was South African Pieter Mawson, who would later become a suspect together with Ekai in the murder of Joy. He was, however, set free.

It was Mawson who found Joy’s body lying on a footpath in a forest and took it to Isiolo Mortuary.

On January 3,1980, Joy went for her usual evening walk at about half past six, leaving Mawson and Kibocha, her cook, at the camp.

A court would hear that Kibocha lit the lamps at 7.15pm when it was quite dark both were worried that Joy had yet to return.

Later, Mawson went looking for Joy and found her body lying on the road in a pool of blood. He went back to the camp for Kibocha after his pick-up got stuck in mud. Joy had a large wound on her left arm, which they thought was inflicted by a lion. 

On January 5, three doctors in Nairobi carried out a post-mortem examination and reported that Joy had been killed using a sharp object. There were two cuts on her arms and a third one eight inches into her rib cage, which had severed her abdominal aorta.

Ekai swears he was forced to sign a confession that the court used to convict him for the murder. In the confession, he had said that he was incensed that Joy did not pay him his dues after sacking him and that he had returned and loitered near her camp in order to protest to her during her evening walk. And that things had taken a turn for the worse and he stabbed her in fury.

The court was also told that Ekai led police to a Manyatta where he pointed to a scabbard and a belt. He later took them to another manyatta (village), where some goods stolen from the camp were recovered among them a haversack containing clothes, the court heard.

Later, the court was told that scientist established that bloodstains on the haversack matched Joy’s blood group.

Ekai would tell the court of the forced confession insisting that he knew nothing about Joy’s death. 

He would appeal against the conviction only for the Court of Appeal to uphold the lower court’s finding that his confession was not obtained under duress.

In prison, Ekai was not amused by the politicisation of the case. "[Former] President Daniel Moi would go to political meetings and announce that the person who killed Joy Adamson would be dealt with severely by the law.”

According to Ekai, used to accompany Joy to Nairobi to collect money or for business, whereupon she would leave him at the Hilton hotel and head for State House to meet the President.

A bitter Ekai feels he was sacrificed because he was black and poor. He will never forgive some Western journalists for trailing him to prison only to change facts and claim that he had admitted killing Joy. 

The soft-spoken man is married to a primary school teacher and has two working children.

He explains that the marriage was arranged just before he was arrested. Joy had insisted that he should get married once he was 18 only a few months away.  

"Luckily, in our tradition, a woman whose wedding has been arranged by the parents can never run away from you. It is for that reason that Paulina Nakusi is still my wife even when I am in jail," he explains.  Paulina visits him regularly and the last of such visits was in June. 

And, should Ekai leave prison, he wouldn’t have problems earning a living. He holds grade one trade certificate in carpentry and upholstery, a grade two one in motor vehicle mechanics, tailoring, wiring and polishing and grade three in leather works. But carpentry is his favourite trade. 

According to his lawyer, Gitobu Imanyara, Ekai was just a fall guy that was sacrificed to appease  Western countries.

"If ever there was a miscarriage of justice in the history of Kenya’s judiciary, it was during the Ekai case,” says Imanyara.

According to the lawyer, out of the 60 witnesses who testified in the case and about 120 exhibits produced as evidence, no shred of evidence emerged connecting Ekai to the murder.

"The case was tailored to appease the West because the Kenyan government did not wish to show the world that a world class conservationist could be killed and it would fail to get the killers." 

He says that Ekai was convicted on account of a confession, which he was forced to sign though it was contrary to "Section 27 of the constitution that does not allow anybody to give evidence against himself.”

According to Imanyara, the case was investigated by retired police officers and the State had also brought in an innapopriate assessor. Now, he wants an inquest into how the case was conducted.

As for Ekai, will the angel of mercy talk to President Mwai Kibaki on his behalf to considerhim for clemency?

"My prayer to President Kibaki is that I have suffered long enough and now I have reformed. He should consider setting me free. Though I was not involved in the murder, I was convicted of the crime and I’ve learned  to live with this," says a Ekai.

Trustee or no trustee, Ekai is among the longest serving prisoners in Kenya.
At Kamiti, Ekaitakes the challenges and intrigues in prison positively but always looking forward to the day the President will remember to set him free. 

It is for this reason that the Kamiti Maximum security prison management has made him the head of all other prisoners in the jail.

"He is very cooperative with the administration other prisoners. He is now reformed  which  is why we made him in-charge of the trustees and also other prisoners,” said Officer, Duncan Ogore.

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