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How Kidero bought a judge: the whistleblower’s claim

“Justice Tunoi acceded to my request only telling me to advise Njeru to advise his boss that there was still enough time and that we had to keep matters secret.”

A series of meetings were arranged thereafter and aborted when Justice Tunoi failed to show. “Njeru and John Osogo (identified as Kidero’s Personal Assistant) were getting impatient. This time the Judge promised to make good the meeting, always assuring me that things had been taken care of and there was still time.”

A meeting between Njeru, Osogo, Tunoi and himself, Kiplagat says, never took place. “When I asked Osogo to arrange for the meeting, he sent me the following text on August 17, ‘Tulimaliza hiyo maneno na hakuna haja kwenda Eldoret (we dispensed with the matter yesterday and there’s no need to go to Eldoret).”

In fact at this point in Kiplagat’s story, Osogo and Njeru are relegated to the role of supporting characters; not featuring prominently again until they issue death threats at the end.

Prominent Nairobi lawyer Katwa Kigen, on Tunoi’s side, and Kiprop Chirchir another businessman, “closely associated with the Governor from the time he worked at Mumias,” take centre stage.

They, according to Kipagat’s account, successfully managed to orchestrate a meeting of sorts between the two main characters with him still at the centre of it. “After delivering the briefcase he (Chirchir) drove the VX to a parallel position to enable the Judge and the Governor wave at each other and ensure that it was not a hoax. The Judge told the Governor, ‘si umeona ni mimi mwenyewe (you have verified that it is me, in person),’” is how Kiplagat describes the meeting; the brown briefcase of course being the one which allegedly contained the Sh200 million in US Dollars.

Throughout his account, Kiplagat describes a number of counter-surveillance precautions he claims Justice Tunoi insisted on; such as the use of taxis to meeting locations, the sending of text messages using different lines, the use of other people’s phones to make calls and if Kiplagat’s account is to be believed, he even sent his sister-in-law to ensure Njeru’s office – one of the places they were meant to meet – was not fitted with surveillance cameras.

“Vumilia (persevere)… Intelligence guys were on our case. Even today I spotted them round my house. Let’s stay for two or three days then we meet,” Kiplagat quotes Tunoi as having messaged him. “He did not want things to be divulged lest he be embarrassed like Shollei.”

For his trouble, Kiplagat claims to have received Sh20,000 from Kigen to facilitate him attend a funeral in his village and a job offer from Kidero. “Jemeli (the sister-in-law) still calls me asking for her share. I have asked her to talk to the judge but she says he has been evasive.”

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Again, if Kiplagat’s account is to be believed, they had gotten away with it.

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