District Commissioner Jonah Anguka

The High Court has ordered that the name of Jonah Anguka, a former District Commissioner,  be removed from the ‘red list’ that effectively meant he was still facing investigation for the murder of Kenya’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in February 1990.

Readers may be interested in this article from the Kenya Forum Archive.

District Commissioner for Nakuru, Jonah Anguka, had been arrested on the 26th November along with eight other people but like them he was released within a fortnight but he was re-arrested on the 10th December and formally charged with the murder of Dr Robert Ouko.

New Scotland Yard detective John Troon did not interview Anguka. He had tried to on a visit to Nakuru but Anguka said he was in a meeting and could not spare the time. Troon did not try to interview him again.

Nor did Troon mention Anguka as a suspect in his Final Report but by the time he gave testimony to the Public Inquiry his view of Anguka had changed.

“I thought his actions on my arrival in Kenya in the first 48 hours or so” Troon told the Public Inquiry, “would appear to me to be [that] there is a possibility that he may as well have been planted in to found out what I was up to” [Troon at testimony to the Public Inquiry, November 18, 1991]

Kenya Police’s Further Investigation Report

The Kenya Police’s Further Investigation Report produced after Public Inquiry had been halted, set out the alleged ‘evidence gathered against’ Anguka. [Kenya Police’s Further Investigation Report Section 7:2]

• Anguka the report said, could not explain how his official car had covered 270km on the 12th and 13th of February.

• Anguka’s driver had gone to collect him at 7:30am on the 13th but unusually he didn’t wake up until about 9am.

• An Administrative Police officer at the gate said he arrived home that morning at 5am. Anguka said he was home all night.

• The Kenya Police claimed Anguka ‘summoned’ the APs and told them to say he was at home every evening of the week running up to Dr Ouko’s murder.

• And they said he gave no reasonable explanation why he travelled to Koru after the announcement that Dr Ouko was missing.

Then there was the curious episode of Anguka’s visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the day after Dr Ouko was murdered.

• On the 13th, the day that Ouko was murdered, Anguka asked Mohammed Yusuf Haji, his Provincial Commissioner, for urgent permission to go to Nairobi the next day. Anguka said he went to see Permanent Secretary Bethuel Kiplagat to request that his wife Susan, Dr Ouko’s Personal Assistant, be transferred to Kenya’s embassy in West Germany.

Anguka On Trial

Anguka was eventually acquitted of Ouko’s murder on 29th July, 1994, after a second trial (the first trial was halted after the death of the judge).

In his summing up Mr Justice Aganyana said he accepted Anguka’s alibi that on the evening before Dr Robert Ouko’s disappeared he had returned home where at about 12:30am he was massaged by his nephew Otieno Odotte.

After his acquittal Anguka fled to the United States where he was granted asylum.

To date, after investigations by New Scotland Yard (1990), a Public Inquiry (1990-91), the Kenya Police 1991-92), a Parliamentary Select Committee (2004-05) and the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (2010-11), the murderer of Dr Robert Ouko has never been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

See also: Citizen TV, Murder at Gota Alila, Who Killed Dr Robert Ouko and Why? Episode 6

Previous, ‘Cover Ups And Prosecution – Gicheru Ouko Murder Inquiry 30 Years On (Part 3)’

Related articles:

Gicheru Ouko Murder Inquiry 30 Years On (Part 1)

Troon’s Fatally Flawed Report – Gicheru Ouko Murder Inquiry 30 Years On (Part 2)