BY SAM ALFAN.
A Kitale court has barred the family of former Aldai MP Kiptum Choge from collecting the body of his son for burial, pending the hearing of a petition filed by his two widows.
Chief magistrate J.K Ng’arng’ar issued the orders barring Kiptum’s children including Joseph, Christian, Miriam and Daniel Choge from removing the body of James Kipkorir from St Monica Hospital for interment.
According to the magistrate, the body can only be removed by Kiptum’s widow Beatrice Musimbi Chegugu.
“A restraining order be and is hereby issued against St. Monica ‘s Hospital for burial, their employees, agents or any other person whomsoever, from releasing the body of the late James Kipkorir to any other person apart from the Beatrice Musimbi Chegugu,” court ordered.
Musimbi and Esther Jepkemoi Tanui, who are widows of the late Kiptum through lawyer Danstan Omari moved to court to stop the burial.
The widows also wants the court to issue and order directing the remains of their son buried at his father’s Pembeni farm in Trans Nzoia county.
Kiptum, a fiery Nandi politician died in 2013 and was buried on the land but the family is embroiled in another dispute with MP Patrick Barasa Simiyu.
The widows are apprehensive that their children are planning to take and bury the remains of their late son in a property that might be inaccessible to them or cause him to be interred in a cemetery.
They argued that they have not been involved in the burial arrangements, and therefore have well-founded apprehension of the uncertainty of if their late step son and son will be given a befitting send off and if they will ever have access to their late stepson and son grave site.
“Unless this matter is dispensed with and determined on a priority basis and ex- parte orders granted on the principle of equal protection and benefit of the law, irreparable damage and prejudice will be occasioned on the windows,” they told the court.
They said the Children and MP Barasa their agents, servants are trespassing and pose a threat of interfering with the family’s property in Pembeni, which they wish the son to be buried.
