Kenneth Orina facing murder charges in Namibia after his wife was found dead in their apartment.
TWO months before the alleged murder of his wife, Kenyan nurse Kenneth Orina asked the Police at Grootfontein to protect him from his spouse, it was testified in the High Court at Oshakati yesterday.
On the second day of Orina’s trial before Judge Christie Liebenberg, the former Grootfontein Police Station commander, Inspector Amon Ndilula, told the court that Orina visited his office on July 9 2007 to ask if his wife could be detained for a few days while he made arrangements for her return to their home country.
Ndilula testified that Orina complained about his wife being aggressive towards him, fighting with him, attacking him, and having tried to pour hot water over him while he was sleeping. He also said he could no longer live with her in the same place, Ndilula told the court.
A little over two months after that visit to the Grootfontein Police Station, Orina’s wife, Rose Chepkemoi Kiplangat (33), was allegedly murdered in the couple’s flat in the Grootfontein State Hospital Nurses’ Home.
Orina is now on trial on charges of murder, defeating or obstructing the course of justice, or attempting to do so, and an alternative charge of violating a dead human body, in connection with the alleged killing of his wife.
The prosecution is charging that he killed her in their flat during the period of September 14 to 17 2007, and that he then dismembered her remains and dumped the body parts at various spots at Grootfontein. Orina (37) denied guilt on all of the charges at the start of his trial on Tuesday.
According to Ndilula, Orina was still in his office when Kiplangat also arrived there. Because Orina’s complaint was of a domestic nature he referred the couple to the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Office so that their matter could be dealt with according to the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, the court heard.
A colleague of Ndilula, Inspector Magdalena Garises, also told the judge yesterday that she found Kiplangat – barefoot, looking dishevelled and disoriented, and crying at times – at the Grootfontein Police Station on July 9 2007.
Kiplangat was complaining about her husband being abusive, Garises said. On advice from Ndilula, she and Orina were referred to the Magistrate’s Office, Garises testified. She also said Ndilula told her that Orina had reported that his wife was missing and that she was trying to kill herself.
Ndilula disputed this part of Garises’s evidence. Orina only told him that his wife wanted to commit suicide, he said. Brisk progress has been made with the prosecution’s case over the first two days of the trial, with State advocate Neville Wamambo having presented the testimony of 17 witnesses to the court so far.
Six of those witnesses told the court yesterday about how body parts – first a human head and forearms, and then two thighs and a torso – were discovered at Grootfontein on September 17 and 25 2007.
Defence lawyer Inonge Mainga is representing Orina, who has remained in custody since his arrest on October 30 2007.
Comments