Kenya Stockholm Blog

Diaspora: Kenyan Sought for Murder in Newzealand

Lydia Munene: In critical condition

Moves to have a Kenyan man suspected of the slaying of a fellow countryman in Christ church brought back to New Zealand broadened today as police named the victim. He was Stephen Mwangi Maina, 38, a close friend of Lydiah Muthoni Munene, 34, who was found badly injured in a dwelling in suburban Avonhead on Monday night. She was covered by a blanket in a bedroom of the house while Mr Maina was found dead on a bed in the same room.

Ms Munene’s estranged husband, Samuel Ngumo Njuguna, 39, flew out of New Zealand at the weekend, headed for Kenya. He boarded a Sunday morning flight from Auckland International Airport and is understood to have arrived in Kenya on Tuesday morning.

Police have alerted Interpol and Kenyan police in an effort to track him down. Christchurch police today contacted officials at Kenya’s High Commission in Canberra and also began talking to the Crown Law Office in Wellington, discussing possible extradition once Mr Njuguna is located.

New Zealand has no extradition treaty with Kenya but some media speculated today that Commonwealth treaties might mean that the suspect could be returned to New Zealand if and when he is found. Detective Inspector Greg Williams, the man in charge of the case, told reporters this afternoon that talks today had focused on “procedural matters required to extradite the man back to New Zealand”.

Mrs Munene, mother of sons nine and 13, remains in an induced coma in Christ church Hospital with head injuries. Her condition late today was reported to be serious but stable. She is reported to have been in New Zealand for several years and her sons were said today to be “very tall and good looking, charming, lively, intelligent and lovely”. Child Youth and Family is now caring for them.

Mr Maina arrived in New Zealand in October last year and had been working at a meat processing plant in Ashburton. Mr Williams said police contacted the mother of the dead man in Kenya and spoke with his brother. Mr Maina was the third son the mother had lost, Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams added police continued to search for a weapon but did not specify what it was. He declined to speculate on the relationship between the dead man and the injured woman and would not say if others were involved Mr Williams said it was unclear whether the relationship between the woman and the dead man had been beyond a friendship. Police, called in by neighbours, found Mr Maina and Ms Munene on Monday night but police have said the victims might have been attacked as early as Friday night.

Mr Williams said police thought the children were removed by their father from the Burrows Place house where they lived with their mother sometime early on Saturday morning between midnight and 6am. “It appears that this is also the likely time the two people were attacked in the house.” Mr Njuguna later dropped off his sons at a friend’s house

Source

September 17, 2009 Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis | Leave a Comment

Kenya-Stockholm Drivers Invited to Paper Presentation

A.C Gullon, A Researcher based in Canada, has taken contact with KSB to invite interested Kenyans or anybody willing to check out his presentation on Traffic safety. The subject should be of interest to car owners or drivers generally. Gullon will be in Stockholm and available on the dates listed below. The following is his brief introduction. He was introduced to KSB by a Kenyan resident in Canada but who has also been residing in Stockholm before changing base. The researcher is ready to make his presentation to any number of people, publicly or privately. He is driven by the need to keep roads safe and to save lives by introducing new safety angles to the concept of road safety. Interested persons can contact Gullon directly via email or through KSB.

As an introduction, I have been a ‘car nut’ since the age of 12, a transport officer in the Canadian air force, head of motor vehicle emission control for Canada in the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s and an automotive journalist (with much time spent on traffic safety research – incl. 55,000kms on rental cars in Europe). I took early retirement in 1996

I am arriving at Arlanda airport on Friday morning to present my 8th traffic safety paper the following Wednesday in the ITS World Congress in Stockholmsmassan.

My previous 7 papers (5 diagnostic, 2 prescriptive) have shown a strong correlation between the ups and downs of the economic cycle and the traffic fatality rate (per vkmt) … in 17 countries representing every inhabited continent.  This curious correlation is explained by the AMPS* Theory of ‘Accident’ Causation: ‘Accidents’, whether in the home, on the job or on the road, occur because “the mind is not on the motion”. [*Absent-Minded Professor Syndrome]  Excerpts from the first (SAE Detroit ‘97) and third (FISITA Seoul ‘00) papers are on my web site with a ‘route map’ below the signature block.

Availability
On the question of  time for such a presentation, I as yet have no commitments for this Saturday (Sept 19) or for the following weekend – Friday evening through Sunday afternoon (If given an appointment with Volvo on the following Monday I may leave for Gothernberg very early in the morning.)  Except for Wednesday morning, the 23rd Sept. when I will be presenting my paper at the Congress, it may even be possible during the week of the Congress (16th ITS World Congress – Stockholm 2009 -        Stockholmsmaessan, 21-25 September 2009 – in Älvsjo. I am booked on Tuesday evening (next week) but will be available during all other evenings. The target group is between 16-24 years although other interested parties can also attend.

I will have a rental car the whole time and any driving is welcome as part of my research (personal observation of the roadway infrastructure and the conduct of the drivers is often important to understand what the traffic safety statistics are trying to tell us).

A. C. Gullon, BSc., PEng.
Automobiles+Concepts+Environments
Consulting on Safety & the Environment
Technical Articles & Lectures
Ph: 613-738-0712   Fx: -8946
eMail: al@alsaces.ca    Web: www.alsaces.ca

September 17, 2009 Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis | Leave a Comment

Ex Exile Onyango Sumba in a Coma in Kenya

Mr. Onyango Sumba, a former Kenyan exile who was based in Stockholm, is reported to be seriously sick in Kenya. According to a contact who has visited him in hospital, Mr. Sumba is in a coma at the Intensive Care Unit at Kenyatta hospital. The contact said that Mr. Sumba might not live for long because his condition is very serious. “He is in a coma and cannot therefore talk”, the contact told KSB.

The big problem is that nobody is taking care of him because the ODM political establishment abandoned him long time ago. The contact said that conditions at Kenyatta National Hospital are very poor and speculated that Mr. Sumba may have been abandoned there to die.

By the time he left life in exile, Mr. Sumba was a close friend of Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The two are the people who are reported to have been responsible for coordinating the 1982 coup which failed before Sumba fled to exile in Tanzania and later Sweden. When Raila came to Sweden on a short visit in April 1998, he was accommodated by Mr. Sumba in his flat at Nacka.

The neglect of Mr. Sumba is disturbing Kenyans who knew him as a patriotic and intelligent Kenyan who spent much of his life in exile fighting the dictatorial Moi regime until Moi was ousted from power through democratic means. Mr. Sumba left for Kenya shortly before the December 2002 elections and at a time when Raila had started political cooperation with Moi.

Okoth Osewe

September 17, 2009 Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis | 9 Comments