Who is Marianne Briner-Mattern: Jeff Koinange’s ‘date rape’ accuser

Marianne Briner-Mattern, the Swiss-Italian woman who over the years has made numerous and changing allegations over the Ouko murder, is the same ‘Marianne Briner’ (then 66) who in 2007 alleged that K24’s Jeff Koinange (41), then working for CNN, had assaulted her and finessed a report from Nigeria by paying bribes to ‘put on a show’.

Jeff Koinange was subsequently sacked from CNN, more it seems for using official computers to carry on a e-mail exchange with Briner-Mattern than anything else.

What really happened was that Jeff Koinange had some sort of relationship with Briner-Mattern but, it seems, would not take her latest allegations over the Ouko murder to CNN (because he didn’t believe them) and did not promote her book as she had wished.

Briner-Mattern invited Jeff Koinange up to her room to discuss the matter and then executed one of her standard plans: no witnesses, accuse him of “date rape”, revenge achieved.

Briner-Mattern, as has happened often before, turned on her one-time friend (see our article ‘Marianne Briner-Mattern: destroyer of Raila Odinga’s presidential bid‘) and wrote to CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton and released her email correspondence with Koinange on a blog site. Result: Jeff Koinange lost his job (and was in hot water with Mrs Koinange).

It seems however, that Jeff was another unlucky man in a long line of Briner-Mattern’s victims.

Marianne Briner-Mattern: a pattern of luring journalists into precarious positions

Gitau wa Njenga, a ‘Kenyan photojournalist’ then based in England, said at the time: “I nearly suffered a similar fate as Koinange after a brief encounter with Marianne” and described her as’ “a dangerous woman”.

Peter Makori, also a Kenyan journalist but at that time based in the US told a website, “When she implicated Moi, many Kenyans did not believe her earlier claims against other ministers… because she came out as a sex predator targeting top guys in government”.

Here ends the lesson.