Cleric in property row ordered to leave Kenya

A Catholic priest locked in a dispute with a group of nuns over ownership of multi-billion-shilling hospitals has been given six months to leave the country.

If the Rev William Charles Fryda, who has since April last year been under suspension, fails to comply with the directive by the US-based Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers he is answerable to, he will be dismissed from priesthood.

He had been ordered to drop court cases he filed in the High Court against Assumption Sisters of Nairobi over ownership of St Mary’s Mission hospitals in Nairobi and Nakuru.

Maryknoll also wanted him to stop his continued conflict with the Archdiocese of Nairobi, headed by John Cardinal Njue.

“I am informing you that as of July 2014 you will no longer be a member of the African region. You are ordered to return and take up residence at the Maryknoll Centre in New York by July 15, 2014,” says a letter signed by the Rev Edward Dougherty, dated June 4.

Fr Fryda, who is a missionary doctor, has been informed that he will be directly under the society’s superior-general until they come to an agreement about his next assignment.

Since his suspension, the priest has been barred from conducting any public priestly ministry or governance in the church.

The row over the ownership of the hospitals started four years ago. The cleric claims to own the health institutions, which were built using donor funds. He says since he is a foreigner, he incorporated the Assumption Sisters as trustees for the purpose of registering the land on which the hospitals meant to benefit the poor sit.

The registration, according to him, was to be transferred later to a limited liability company called St Mary’s Mission Hospital.

However, the sisters called him and branded him a trespasser. They asked him to move out of the parcels of land he had bought.