BY SAM ALFAN.
An estranged wife of Permanent Secretary Julius Kiplangat Korir has narrated how he used to beat her when they were still married.
Evelyn Koech told Senior Resident Magistrate Muthoni Nzibe that she was married to the PS for seven years, five of which were marred by physical violence.
“We got married on 28th June 2013 and separated 21st November 2020. We have two children aged seven and four years old,” Koech told the court.
Koech who works as human resource manager testified that Korir started physically abusing her in 2015.
When asked why she stayed in the abusive relationship for years, the woman said Korir would always apologize afterwards and even call their pastor to plead with her not walk out of marriage or press charges.
She produced some emails her husband would write apologizing after such beatings.
Koech said her worst beating was in 2018 when she was 9 months pregnant and only three days away from delivery.
She recalled trying to protect her belly from the blows and later went to the hospital to check on he baby.
She thanked God that the doctor told her that her baby was fine and was born safely three days later.
According to her, on 17th September 2020 at 7.30 pm, she got home and released her nanny as was her routine.
“I was in the children’s room holding my younger one who was one and a half. I had released the house girl and was alone with the children,” Koech told the court.
She continued that after a while, Korir emerged through the door and shouted “leo utaniona, wapi chakula”.
Before she could utter a word, he was already slapping her on the cheeks.
All this while she was trying to guard her unborn baby.
The witness added that she informed her then husband that she had just arrived from work and had not checked whether there was food in the kitchen.
It was her testimony that Korir started to tear her clothes while beating as she screamed for help.
“I was wearing a dera dress. I started shouting “mnisaidie ananiua”.
The court heard that after the ordeal, Korir took the baby and went down stairs as she ran to the master bedroom and wore another dera thinking the worst is over.
But she was shocked when she opened the door and found Korir waiting for her with what she described as a masaai rungu.
She said she ran to the study room because it was next door but he followed her there and started beating her with the rungu which left marks all over her body.
“He took like like 10 minutes beating me. He was hitting me with the rungu. I have a lot of marks on my body inflicted by my former husband,” she testified.
Koech continued that Korir then pulled her down stairs asking her to go get the food.
We went to the kitchen where we got some githeri and sukuma wiki which we then placed on the side.
The court heard that while all these was happening, the children were hiding in their play room downstairs.
Koech told the court that Korir left the food and started to pull her upstairs while hitting saying “kitu tu unaelewa ni kiboko, leo utaona”.
The court heard that the PS continued beating her up upstairs but at some point she managed to escape and ran downstairs to run out of the house.
However her ex-husband was after her and found her at the door trying to open the lock.
“He overpowered me, threw me down on the floor kicking me and hitting me on my head in the presence of the workers and the children who were watching by the side,” Koech testified.
The court heard that the workers were trying to intervene but as always he told them to never come near him when he was beating her.
With tears running down her cheeks, Koech added that there was blood on the floor because she now had injuries all over her body.
It was her testimony that after he was done beating her, he told her to go and report to the police as usual.
She told the court that she cried for a while then picked herself up. She approached Koech at the sofa where he was seated and asked him for the rungu he had used to beat her up. However, he broke it infront of her eyes. He told her, “hakuna mahali unapeleka hii”.
Koech then went upstairs and put on another dress because the one she had changed to was also torn in the process.
According to Koech, she packed the two dera dresses and left for Nairobi hospital where she was attended to and had to explain to the doctor what had happened.
Koech further stated that the attending doctor took a video of her injuries with her phone which was part of the evidence.
After treatment at about 2am, she drove to Hardy police station where she recorded the matter as she did many times before.
She was advised to go to the Traffic Headquarters to be examined by police doctor.
On 18th she went to traffic HQ where she was examined and thereafter issued with a P3 form which she took back to hardy police station.
Several parties had tried to mediate the marriage after the abuse.
DCI officers also visited the home and extracted the CCTV footage.
The court heard that the home CCTV had captured most the incident because thet had installed them in common places apart from bedrooms.
