Missing Wajir MCA’s case to proceed even without government chemist's report

The High Court will tomorrow (Friday, October 25) proceed with the hearing of a case where the family of the missing Wajir MCA Yusuf Hussein has sued the government seeking to compel it to produce him, dead or alive.

The case to proceed whether the government analyst's report will be available or not.

The Government Chemist is required to table findings of DNA investigations on a body retrieved from Yahud Dam near the Wajir airport last weekend but is yet to do so.

DNA samples from the body were transmitted in duplicates to the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) human identification lab by the family's pathologist, Dr Daniel Zuriel, and to the Government Chemist by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI's) homicide team.

But only the KEMRI report brought to court by Dr Zuriel was available and the government, through Wanjiku Mwangi from the State Law Office, was seeking for an additional two days to table the report.

Justice Alexander Muteti rejected the state’s application for two more days to allow the government scientists to complete the report and said the matter will continue, owing to its sensitivity.

Mwangi had made the application after the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Faith Odhiambo asked for the resumption of the case.

The hearing had been suspended to ascertain whether the body retrieved from the dam in Wajir town is that of the missing ward rep, but it turned out that it was not.

Odhiambo said according to a DNA investigations report by Dr Zuriel, the body was not that of the MCA who was abducted in Nairobi on September 13. The LSK president tabled in court the report by the University of Nairobi lecturer.

Police who collected the body took it to the Wajir County Referral Hospital but an irate public forcefully took it away to the MCA's home as pathology services were being sought.

Dr Zuriel, who works at the UoN's School of Medicine in the Department of Human Pathology, was contracted to undertake the exercise which was carried out on Monday.

The family's lawyer, Danstan Omari, said he had spoken to Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Onduor who informed him that the report was ready and was being typed and would be in court Thursday afternoon.

He urged the court to dismiss the application and order for immediate resumption of the case.

"That body was a decoy by the government to make the family to go and bury [it] for closure to make this an academic exercise," stated Omari.

Omari said Hussein's case is a matter of national security and urged the court to consider the plight of the family who are searching for their loved one.

Hussein was abducted by armed men in Nairobi's South B on September 13 and has not been found.

Ms Mwangi said the MCA is not in police custody and his matter is being treated as a case of a missing person.

She said the results being awaited from the government analysts are not yet ready.

The state counsel dismissed the report tabled by the LSK president, stating that the same should be produced as evidence by a doctor and not by a lawyer.

Hussein had been summoned by Wajir county commissioner and the county security and intelligence committee chairman Karuku Ngumo on August 6, 2024 over insecurity issues in Dela Ward.