NYAHURURU, Kenya, April 15- Fresh controversy has surfaced over the controversial death of the late Olympics marathon champion Samuel Kamau Wanjiru as close family members claimed on Sunday that he was allegedly executed by police officers.
His mother Anne Wanjiru claims that her son was killed by security officers and that was the reason the report probing his death has never been released since May last year.
She added that some influential individuals have made efforts to ensure that she was not included in the management of the late athlete’s properties worth millions of shillings.
Wanjiru told press in Nyahururu that she has been sidelined in the management of his rental houses in Nakuru, Nyahururu and Nairobi owing to the fact that she has not been given any share from the rent collection.
However, Wanjiru’s widow Trizah Njeri on her part denied the allegations claiming that her mother-in-law had been threatening her life forcing her to relocate from their matrimonial Nyahururu Muthaiga Estate home to Nakuru to avoid persistent squabbles.
Wanjiru’s mother triggered the wave of controversy last Friday when she told a local vernacular station that the Olympic champions’ widow and police officers were responsible for the death of her son with a view of taking over his property.
She said her son’s body had multiple injuries adding that even doctors could also have injected him with a lethal chemical to speed up his death.
But the official report on Wanjiru’s death has not yet been released by government pathologists since he died on May 15 last year following a fall from the balcony of his house.
Reacting to the claims, Njeri accused her mother in-law of peddling unsubstantiated claims and challenged her to record fresh statements with the police to pave way for further investigations.
“I would also want to know who killed my husband if at all he was killed. I also feel the watchman guarding the premises in the night of death should be investigated if he changes his version of the story with regard to what transpired on the fateful night,” she added.
The mother claimed the night watchman who was on duty that fateful night had changed his earlier position that there was nobody in the compound and claimed that police officers were indeed in the compound moments before Wanjiru died.
On property management, the widow said her mother-in-law is in- charge of rental houses at Core Site Estate in Nyahururu and takes all the rent.
“I also left her all the cows my husband had at Gatimu Village. I don’t ask any penny from her,” she charged.
Njeri further said she is in charge of buildings in Nakuru since they were incomplete by the time her husband died, adding that there was no way she could have completed them and give them to somebody else “as if I don’t have Wanjiru’s children to raise.”
The widow termed her mother’s claims as weird, saying she is only developing cold feet after hearing that she intends to come back to live with her children in her Nyahururu home.
“But how long will I stay in this sort exile?” she posed.