Former chairman of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) Chairman Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat is dead.

Kiplagat (81) passed on early this morning at the Nairobi Hospital where he had been admitted to the ICU.

Bethuel Kiplagat as Chairman of the TJRC

Kiplagat was appointed Chairman of the TJRC in August 2009 but ‘stepped aside’ as chairman of the Commission in November the same year to allow a tribunal time to look into allegations that he had any questions to answer over a land issue, the Wagalla massacre in 1984, and the murder of Kenya’s Foreign Minister Dr Robert Ouko in 1990 (when Kiplagat was Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat

The late Bethuel Kiplagat also served as Kenya’s ambassador to France and then the UK from 1978 to 1981. Between 1983 and 1991 he was the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He mediated conflicts in the Horn of Africa, was chairman of the Concerned Citizens for Peace at the time of the post-election violence in 2008, and assisted Chief Mediator Kofi Annan.

Prior to that, he was named as one of the ‘eminent persons’ in 2006 that constituted the Africa Peer Review Panel, and later President Kibaki appointed him to chair a committee of ‘eminent Kenyans’ given the job of drawing up a roadmap for the enactment of the new Constitution.