The family of Tecra Muigai wants the public prosecutor to charge afresh her former boyfriend Lali Omari Lali with her murder.
Tecra died on May 2 at Nairobi Hospital after her family evacuated her from a Lamu hospital Lali had taken her after allegedly falling down the stairs of her hotel suite. She was 29.
Lali, 52, was charged with the murder on July 13 at Garsen law courts. He denied the charges.
However, the DPP withdrew the charges three days later and ordered an inquest into Tecra’s death.
In a new development, Tecra’s mother Tabitha Karanja says in an affidavit filed in court that her family was taken aback by the DPP’s decision.
Karanja wants the DPP to compel the investigators to fill any gaps in Lali’s file and get him to answer to murder charges.
Further, she said, the family wants the case to be heard in Nairobi where her daughter died. She argues that the key players in the case — the family, the forensic investigators, and the pathologists — are all based in the city.
Karanja says the family fears for their lives in Lamu, where Lali is well known by boat owners and beach boys.
“Boat transport is the singular most reliable form of transport for accessing Lamu Island hence there is real and well-founded fear in the family of the deceased that they may not travel to and from Lamu Island to attend and participate in the inquest proceedings at Lamu without significant threat to their life and safety,” Karanja says.
She accuses the DPP of flip-flopping on the case and standing in the way of the family getting justice.
“The family… strongly believes…. [that] the DPP .. is responding to instructions and or pressure from elsewhere to avoid bringing to account whoever may have been responsible for the death of Patricia Tecra Muigai,” she says in the affidavit.
DCI officers probing Tecra’s death described Lali as a possessive and aggressive lover who sometimes fought her friends and perceived rivals.
The report suggests Tecra was captive to Lali’s love and had fought to extricate herself from it. The couple’s affair had lasted 10 months when she died.
A post-mortem report showed that Tecra had suffered a concussion and died from blunt force trauma sustained on her head.