The great-grandson of Kenya’s most famous white settler went on trial on Monday accused of shooting dead a black Kenyan for poaching on his land in a case stirring simmering animosities from British colonial times.
Thomas Cholmondeley — 38-year-old descendant of Lord Delamere, one of the original British settlers in Kenya — has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Robert Njoya, a local stonemason he accuses of hunting animals on his land.
The trial touches on deep sensibilities over race and ownership inequities in the east African country. Rights groups have called it a case “between the haves and have-nots."
Second controversy for Cholmondeley
Addressing a packed High Court with crowds standing in the corridors, Kenya’s director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, said Cholmondeley shot Njoya with a high-calibre rifle he uses to hunt animals.
“We shall prove the accused has no legally recognized justification or excuse for causing the death of the deceased,” he said. “The accused attacked the deceased ... as retaliation or a revenge for trespassing or poaching in his land.
His arrest in May came nearly a year after prosecutors dropped charges against him for killing a wildlife ranger. Then, he admitted shooting Samson ole Sisina, but denied murder, saying he thought Sisina was an armed robber.
His acquittal on that charge sparked protests.
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The tall aristocrat was brought into court under tight security from Nairobi’s Kamiti maximum security prison in a van of inmates accused of serious crimes.
Handcuffed between two warders, and wearing a khaki-colored linen suit, blue shirt, tie and cowboy boots, Cholmondeley sometimes closed his eyes as Tobiko spoke and showed exhibits.
Relatives watched him in court.
“Happy Valley"
Cholmondeley has told police he was taking an evening walk on his farm when he and a friend ran into men armed with machetes and carrying a dead impala.
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When the men were asked to stop, the men set dogs on the pair. Cholmondeley then shot the dogs and Njoya, police said.
The prosecutors said they would present evidence to show Njoya was killed by a single gunshot wound to the pelvis while he was running away, posing no threat to Cholmondeley.
Sarah Njoya, the 28-year-old wife of the deceased, identified in court a dirty faded black T-shirt and a tattered jacket as the clothes her husband was wearing when he was shot.
She spoke at length about her grief as she went to a nearby mortuary to identify the body of her husband. She said Njoya had signed an agreement with the Delameres in 2000, allowing him to visit the farm and clear unwanted cactus trees in the farm.
The accused’s lawyer, Fred Ojiambo, sought to show Njoya and his friends as people who had a habit of killing animals in the farm to sell meat, posing a danger to Cholmondeley.
Resentment runs high
Hundreds of Kenyans protested after the killing and called for white settlers to be removed from Kenya’s lush highlands where resentment runs high over inequities in land ownership.
It is especially visible in Naivasha, where Cholmondeley runs his 55,000-acre Soysambu Ranch, teeming with eland, zebra and giraffes, surrounded by foreign-owned flower farms drawing dirt-poor workers living in nearby slums.
Although Kenyans complain about white farmers, many also loathe the rich black Kenyans who allocated themselves massive land after independence from Britain in 1963.
The Delameres’ flamboyant lifestyle, along with that of other wealthy settlers, gave rise to the term “Happy Valley” for a set notorious for sexual affairs and gin-soaked exploits.