Kenya Stockholm Blog

Unanswered Questions On Kashito Case Part 2

Is there any possibility that David Aquinas Kashitoshito may have been buried in Sweden? One Kenyan who plucked the rumour from the atmosphere right into the Internet was blogger Munala wa Munala who wondered aloud why it was becoming almost treasonable for Kenyans to ask questions on critical issues within the community in Stockholm. Passing a comment at KSB, Munala wrote:

“In the name of transparency and accountability, is it wrong for Kenyans to ask some burning questions? With all due respect, there are rumours that the late Kashito was not a Kenyan citizen and that his body was buried here in Sweden. Can someone from the Mr. Muirani committee shade some light on the above?”

The following day, Friday November 28, 2008, Mr. Muirani, the Chairman of the embattled Kashito committee, did shade some light over the issue. According to Muirani, who released a statement via the Njoro blog, the body of Kashito had been deposited at the Lee funeral home in Nairobi and was buried (the same day he was releasing the statement) at Langata cemetery in Nairobi.

The Muirani statement was not copied to KSB, probably because Muirani is upset, angry or irritated with the blog for having published the first installment of the Kashito story which tended to put him under serious pressure as the Chairperson of the Kashito committee.

Commentator after commentator went after Muirani’s jugular with Fagilia even urging him to avail information “as soon as possible” in order to prevent the personal reputations of Kashito committee members from being damaged by what was increasingly snowballing into a “Kashitogate” kinda scandal”.

If Muirani has developed a grudge with KSB on the basis of the story, we may have to ask the question as to why he continues to “preach forgiveness of sins” and reconciliation because KSB scribes had to surf a long distance to Njoro’s hide-out in order to get what Muirani was saying and only after a tip off by a KSB spy.

Prior to Munala’s concerns about rumour that Kashito may have been buried in Sweden, a different kind of rumour was doing the rounds over the phone where “Kenya-Stockholm Olympic rumour mongers” had retreated to do business with an assortment of contacts and fans who were thirsty to get the latest update on the Kashito front.

In the absence of official details from Kashito committee which appeared to have been hoarding information, Kenya-Stockholm rumour mongers were doing “booming business” in air time and you digested a different version of the story depending on the channel you tuned to. In fact, leading channels in the business were all busy for long periods and you had to try several times before going through to the Chief Executives of the numerous Rumour companies that have sprung up in Kenya-Stockholm.

CREMATED
Appalling as it sounds, KSB is one of the biggest customers of different Stockholm-based “Rumour Networks” that feed the markets in greater Kenya-Stockholm consumer base. Just like the Global economic crisis that is starved of capital, the rumour sector has a tendency of going into crisis when there is acute shortage of stories and it is during these “hard times” when KSB normally goes looking for Purity at the Kenyan Embassy. Now that there is something, the “Oslo Jamhuri” can wait.

To get back to the Kashito thing, another rumour that was hot mid this week had it that Kashito’s body had been cremated because the body could not be transported to Kenya since Kashito was allegedly not a Kenyan passport holder. According to one of the channels, Kashito had a Botswanan passport which he allegedly acquired after he moved to Botswana from Kenya before travelling to Sweden for further studies.

When the Kashito committee visited the Embassy early last week to look for help, the Ambassador is reported to have refused to meet them allegedly because of the Kashito passport problem. The Passport factor was said to have been responsible for the failure of Kashito to use his Kikuyu name during his interactions with Kenyans in life because he was apparently afraid that any blowing up of his real identity as a Kenyan could be catastrophic to his designs.

The issue is said to have been so sensitive that even the Kashito committee steered clear from getting his names out in the open until the names were broadcast by mrseed.com. A top Narc-Kenya official did admit that when he met Kashito in life, the Kenyan told him that he was a Nigerian, information that tended to confirm that there was something funny with Kashito’s identity.

The Ambassador is whispered to have kept away from the Kashito committee because of potential scandal that could have blown out in case things turned ugly. The rumour that the body may have been cremated for the ashes to be transported to Kenya had it that since Kashito was holding a passport from Botswana, working out documentation through the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm for his body to be transported to Kenya was going to be mission impossible.

If the papers were to be worked out from the nearest Embassy of Botswana in Scandinavia, a similar problem was bound to arise while there would be nobody to receive the body in Botswana even if the paper work went through. This problem was apparently well known to the Kashito family and, according to the rumours, it is the impossibility of resolving the problem that reportedly led to the decision of the family that close family members travel to Sweden to view the body before it could allegedly be cremated and the ashes transported to Kenya. This is not to suggest that the body was cremated but to explore the rumours. Continued in Part 3 below…

Okoth Osewe

November 29, 2008 Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis | Leave a Comment

Unanswered Questions On Kashito Case Part 3

Although Mr. Muirani admitted that the Kenyan Embassy helped with “translation” of certain documents, he did not indicate whether the Embassy also helped with documentation for transportation of Kashito’s body, a service that could have been worth mentioning because it was more important than translation.

In his statement that the Embassy helped with translations, Muirani did not say whether the police documents that were translated were acquired by the Kashito committee which took them to the Embassy for translation or whether they were given to the Embassy by Swedish police. In fact, Muirani’s statement tended to suggest that the documents originated from the Kashito committee which may have acquired them from the Swedish authorities before taking them to the Embassy for translation.

The problem with this omission is that if Kashito was a Kenyan citizen, police documents could have been released directly to the Embassy which could have proceeded to translate them automatically then open a file for the case. This is what happened in the case of Juliet. Is the Kashito file at the Embassy? May be, Kottut knows better.

Another party that was entitled to the documents according to Swedish law were Kashito’s immediate family members who could have acquired them then passed them over to Kashito committee which could, in turn, have taken them to the Embassy for translation. This channel of communication was only necessary if the Embassy did not receive the documents directyly from the Swedish authorities.

However, the biggest omission in the Muirani statement is that it failed to mention whether the Embassy also gave “clearance” to the Swedish authorities and the relevant airline that Kashito’s body could be transported to Kenya. Without this clearance, no dead body can enter Kenya from abroad. To elevate “translation services” as the most important business the Kashito committee went to do at the Embassy could raise new and complicated questions.

One issue that Kenyans kept harping on is where cash to transport the body came from. If you asked rumour mongers in the absence of information, the answer was simple. Transporting Kashito’s ashes to Kenya was not too expensive and, in any case, a person’s ashes also constitutes “the body” which has to be buried anyway so? This theory found impetus from the fact that Kashito’s parents and brother never accompanied the body to Kenya, an act which some Kenyans here found strange.

SHOULD KENYA-STOCKHOLMERS RE-EXAMINE THEMSELVES?
According to latest information gathered by KSB, Kashito’s father is reportedly a top police officer in Kenya and once complications arose in the case, the father, mother and brother booked a flight to Stockholm and arrived without the knowledge of some members of the Kashito committee which, nevertheless, was split between an “inner core” of the Committee that appeared to have been in the know about events and an “outer ring” which was permanently kept out of the information loop.

Some members of the outer core were openly complaining to Kenyans that they didn’t know what was going on. This group believes that it had been kept out by core members who were named as Mr. Muirani, Mr. Samson and the Kinuthias.

For example, the “outer core” was never consulted before the cancellation of the harambee that was scheduled for November 28 while they read about the arrival of Kishito’s family members in the blogs. Most importantly, they didn’t know how 20,000 kr that was realised by the Committee was raised while they were never consulted when Muirani led some Committee members to the Embassy.

The agenda with the Embassy was also not known to these outsider committee members. As reports hit the blogs that kashito’s body would be transported to Kenya, some committee members complained that they didn’t even know the airline that was transporting the body, leave alone where money had come from.

According to one “outer core” Committee member, it is very possible that initial meetings at Kinuthia’s residence raised 7,000 kr. However, this member said that unless there were very huge contributions, it was difficult to understand how the amount was raised because not all Committee members were updated. While it was great that money had been raised, the outer core members believed that they had a right to know how money was being raised by virtue of being Committee members.

One question that may linger and that may come back to haunt the Committee is the cause of Kashito’s death. This is because the Njoro reports indicated that investigations would take at least three weeks after which Kenyans expected to be told what Killed Kashito. The subject of the cause of death is very important to many Kenyans because Kashito lost his life at a very prime age.

Before his death, he packed some items and sent them to Kenya through someone who was travelling back home. That was a Wednesday. He was supposed to show up at the airport the following day to say bye-bye but he didn’t because he had already died. On his table was a note from Psalms 23 “The Lord is my shepherd…”. What is not known is whether he wrote this note deliberately before he went to sleep or whether the note was written much earlier before he died.

Now that a statement has been issued by the Chairman of the Kashito committee, Mr. Muirani, it is hoped that the Kashito issue will come to a permanent rest in Kenya Stockholm. Despite the rumours and whoever is spreading them, the death of Kashito remains a tragic event to both members of his family and the Kenyan community at large.

Regardless of the rumours, the Kashito committee deserves credit for work done while the Kinuthias should be accorded the “Thank you” they so much deserve. The Kenya-Stockholm community should use the Kashito case to re-examine itself in all relevant aspects. The work of KSB in the situation will always be to bring the story as it is as this is bound to help with further analysis. In this self-proclaimed mission, KSB will continue to have friends and foes alike.

Okoth Osewe

November 29, 2008 Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis | 9 Comments