Kenyan secretly buried in US: Exhumation hearing starts in Texas
The pre-trial hearing for the exhumation of a US-based Kenyan mother of six, whose mysterious death is at the centre of a court battle involving two families, started in Dallas, Texas, yesterday.
Mr Obadiah Kinara, who has vehemently resisted the exhumation of his girlfriend, Dorothy Ong’era, was missing in court and was not represented.
Judge Brooke Allen asked lawyers who had previously appeared for Mr Kinara whether they had served him the hearing date. They said they did before withdrawing their legal services.
She said though their application for withdrawal was straightforward, the Civil Procedure Rule (10) of Texas law required that it be formally heard in court.
“Mr Kinara has the right to participate either individually or through a representative,” said the judge.
A representative from the cemetery said they were waiting for the court’s directive as to where they should hand the body over once exhumation is done.
The victim’s lawyer, Ms Amy Lorenzo, said Dorothy’s ‘legal husband’ in Kenya, Mr Dennis Mose, will testify when hearing resumes next week.
Justice Allen directed that the husband be sworn in via Zoom by a Commissioner for Oaths in Kenya. Mr Kinara is engaged in a court battle with Mr David Ong’era, Dorothy’s father, over her body.
Mr Kinara maintains she drowned at home, but the father suspects foul play. The couple had three children.
In a recent interview with Nation, Mr Kinara dismissed claims that he had a hand in Dorothy’s death, saying pathologists concluded that it was accidental drowning.
Mr Kinara said he took the decision to go public because of “a campaign to portray me as a murderer despite no active investigation by law enforcement agencies”.
“I loved my wife and I’ve been deeply hurt and affected by the social media campaign orchestrated by my in-laws to create the impression that I had something to do with the death,” he said.
The father successfully applied for the exhumation of his daughter’s body so that an independent postmortem can be conducted to determine the circumstances under which she died on December 17 last year in a house she shared with Mr Kinara.
However, Mr Kinara unsuccessfully opposed the move, saying Mr Ong’era had no legal standing to lay any claim on the body.
Mr Ong’era has contested the alleged marriage between his daughter and Mr Kinara, emphasising that theirs was cohabitation.
He informed the court that his daughter was married to Mr Mose, who is domiciled in Kenya and that their marriage stands and recognised in law.
Mr Kinara presented to court a controversial divorce decree purportedly issued by a court in Kisii that allegedly dissolved the marriage between Dorothy and Mr Mose. He reportedly married her after she had already divorced her first husband.
However, the purported divorce turned out to be fake as the Kenyan judiciary verified the correct parties in the orders that Mr Kinara had alleged were for Dorothy and her husband. BY DAILY NATION
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