The Kenya Forum’s doubts about the authenticity of an article in the Nairobi Law Monthly, supposedly by John Ward, father of the British tourist Julie Ward murdered in Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Reserve in 1988, grows by the hour.

Yesterday, we pointed out that the Nairobi Law Monthly article in which author ‘John Ward’ accuses Jonathon Moi (pictured above) of the murder of his daughter switches in style from a personal account to a third party report and relies on the testimony of an utterly discredited witness, Kodipo, discredited not least by John Ward himself.

In 1991, John Ward accused Kodipo of being “mentally unbalanced”. Mr Ward was quoted as saying: “We have proved that he [Kodipo] is not genuine. I believe he is mentally unbalanced. He suffers from fantasies and hallucinations.” It therefore seems very unlikely that Mr Ward would have used him as the principle source when writing a piece outlining new suspects.

The more we consider the article the greater grows our belief that it is at least in part a deception, or even a fake.  Its style and content is so totally out of character for the real John Ward who just last year gave a hugely articulate exposition of the situation to date on NTV.

For 24 years John Ward, a former policeman, has campaigned to get to the truth of his daughter’s murder. His goal is to get a conviction of the real murderers. He, above all people, has paid meticulous attention to details and evidence (last year collecting DNA evidence, for example), linking events, being precise in his analysis and dismissing attempts to mislead him.

The Nairobi Law Monthly’s article, published under the name ‘John Ward’, is in part a disjointed, inarticulate list of names and stories, and not something you would in anyway associated with the real John Ward.

John Ward would know that positively mentioning Kodipo would irreparably damage the case in court; he would refer to his daughter as ‘Julie’, or by her nickname ‘Muff’, not the formal ‘Julie Ward’; nor would he have just relied on the testimony of a ‘second hand clothes seller’ without fully supporting the testimony with facts; and he would know that the Nairobi Law Monthly article could set his investigation back years.

John Ward has spoken before of “red herrings’” being placed in front of him to lead him off the patch to the truth of his daughter’s murder. The Kenya Forum wonders if the Nairobi Law Monthly’s article is another ‘red herring’. Is it perhaps by someone else called ‘John Ward’? Is it Kenyan politics disguised as investigative journalism? Has the Nairobi Law Monthly been the victim of a hoax?

This would not be the first time that attempts have been made to link public figures close to former president Moi with murders they have not committed. Former minister of various offices in Moi’s government, Nicholas Biwott, has long been associated with the murder of Robert Ouko. This association has been found unfounded and, in 1999, Biwott was awarded the largest defamation settlement in Kenyan history after a British writer published a book naming Biwott as the principle suspect in the Ouko murder saga. 

For more on the subject of Julie Ward’s murder, read:

‘Julie Ward’s murder: did John Ward accuse Jonathon Moi of murder?’