A witness who was sharing the rent with the late Juliet Kavinga has told a Swedish court that the day Juliet disappeared, she was wearing an ordinary jeans trouser and a sweater. On May 13th 2005, the witness told the court that he was standing on the door way of the kitchen when Juliet told him that there was something she wanted to discuss with him.
When asked by Tora Holst, the Prosecutor, what Juliet had wanted to discuss with him, the witness said that he didn’t know exactly but suspected that it might have been something to do with her pregnancy. A friend had come to pick up the witness with a car at that time and the witness told the court that he informed Juliet that they would discuss the issue when he returned from shopping.
“When I returned, Juliet was not in the house”, he said. At that point, the witness did not suspect anything strange because he thought that Juliet was out shortly and that she would return. The witness, who is an African male in his late 30s or early 40s, was the most interesting witness to have testified at the trial since it began.
According to him, “Juliet was a normal person” and he told the court that although they resided together in the same apartment, they never used to dine together. He was paying 3.500 kr rent while Juliet was paying 1.500 kr for an adjacent room.
When questioned why he was paying more money for the rent, the witness said that he occupied a bigger room and a sitting room while Juliet occupied just one room. The house was owned by a woman who was away in Africa at the time Juliet disappeared. He said that Juliet was a professional hair dresser although he didn’t know the amount of money she earned. He also did not know whether Juliet worked at a hair salon.
The witness told the court that he new Juliet’s boyfriend because Juliet had introduced the boy to him. He identified the boyfriend as the same person who was sitting in court.
“The boyfriend used to come home although he had never spent the night in Juliet’s room”, he told the court. He said that he lived together with Juliet but that he did not have a romantic relationship with Juliet who also never told her that she was pregnant. When asked how he knew that Juliet was pregnant, he said that Juliet’s tummy began to get bigger and that he could see that she was pregnant.
Prosecutor: “Did you ask her who the father of the child was?”.
Witness: “Yes”.
Prosecutor: “And what did she say”
Witness: “She said that she was the father”, the witness told the court adding that by then, Juliet was still living in the apartment.
When asked by the lawyer of the accused what he meant by Juliet being “the father” of the child she was carrying, he said that his understanding when Juliet said so was that the boyfriend was the father. He said that Juliet used to go to Church at St Emanuel but that as her pregnancy advanced, she stopped going to church. He said that Juliet never used to bring men home except once when a friend of his tried to befriend Juliet.
When Juliet returned home with the man, the witness said that Juliet slept sitting on the kitchen table while the man slept alone in her room. He said that when he asked Juliet about the circumstances, Juliet said that she wasn’t interested in the man because she knew he was married. He told the court that this was a long time before Juliet met her Swedish boyfriend who was in court. After the incident, he told the court that the relationship did not continue.
The witness said that the relationship between Juliet and her Swedish boyfriend was good and that Juliet used to sleep over at his place from time to time. In October 2005, Juliet told the witness that he will have to pay the whole rent because she was moving in with her boyfriend. The witness said that for the whole of December, he was alone in the house because Juliet was away.
“In January, Juliet came back from nowhere. Someone opened the door and when I asked her what had happened, she said that we would talk later”, the witness said. Juliet then requested that she continue to stay if the witness had no objection and the witness accepted her back.
The witness said that she did not know why Juliet came back but when she was pressed by the Prosecutor why he did not ask her, he said that it was not his business to ask her because he believed that Juliet had an obligation to tell her if she wanted to.
The witness said that Juliet asked him if he would help in any way during her pregnancy and he accepted to do whatever he could do to help. “I felt pity for her because it appeared as if she was alone and needed morale”, he said, adding that he wanted Juliet to know that there was someone who could help. He said that he didn’t know if Juliet continued with contacts with her boyfriend after she returned and that the boyfriend never appeared at the house again.
He said that at about the time when Juliet returned, another man (name on file) who was a student joined them in the house. He said that the man was very busy and always left at 6.00 in the morning.
He said that the day Juliet left the house for the last time and told him that there was something she wanted to tell him, he knew that it must have been something special. He said that at first, he thought that Juliet’s day of delivery was approaching and that what she wanted to tell him might have had something to do with the impending delivery.
When Juliet disappeared, the witness told the court that he tried to make contacts for two days and even sent a message asking Juliet to get in touch with him if she got the message but nothing happened.
“After one week, I went to her room to check if something was not normal”, he told the court. He said that although everything looked normal, he noticed that Juliet’s black bag with wheels was missing while a light blue gadget that was made in Germany and which Juliet used for exercising her stomach, was also missing. “I thought she might have traveled”, he said.
After one week, the witness said that he called a lady friend of Juliet (name on file) and informed her about Juliet’s disappearance together with the fact that she was not responding to phone calls. Juliet’s friend, who hails from Kenya and who also gave evidence before the court, said that the two needed to meet to discuss the issue.
Juliet’s lady friend did come to his apartment and after discussions, the two concluded that Juliet might have been at the refugee camp and that she was safe. Juliet had told the witness when they first met that she was a refugee.
The witness said that he never reported Juliet’s strange absence to police because he personally believed that she was at her boyfriend’s flat and that she was fine. The story continues at the blog spot on Thursday.
Okoth Osewe: makosewe@gmail.com
About the Author
