[Previous entry: "Lost tribe at risk after court victory for Amazon loggers"] [Next entry: "The deserters: Awol crisis hits the US forces"]

05/17/2005:

"Masai fury after judge told to halt white aristocrat murder trial"

A court was told yesterday that a murder charge against one of Kenya's most prominent white farmers should be dropped on the recommendation of its attorney general.
The Hon Thomas Cholmondeley, 37, whose father, Lord Delamere, is one of Kenya's biggest landowners, had been accused of shooting and killing Samson ole Sisina, a plainclothes game warden, on the Delamere family's ranch, Soysambu.

The warden was on the 100,000 acre (40,000 hectares) farm, along with two colleagues, for an undercover investigation into the trade in "bushmeat" from illegally slaughtered buffalo or impala.

...Mr Sisina was a Masai, and dropping the charge may cause widespread anger. The Masai nurse grievances against white farmers for settling on land they once roamed with their cattle.

Outside court, Kitaei Ole Nkoiboni, a Masai councillor in the town of Narok, said: "We are very angry and bitter that once again we are not seeing justice done. One of our sons has died in the dedication of his duty; yet what we see today is that you can kill and get away with it."

The Delameres have lived in the Rift valley for more than a century, and enjoy close links with Kenya's ruling elite. The fourth Baron Delamere, father of the current baron, was part of the hedonistic "Happy Valley" set dramatised by the film White Mischief, set in 1941.
Full: guardian.co.uk