Trustee official sued in dispute over Sh375 million land
Five
siblings in Nairobi Karen are pleading for justice after a
Public Trustee representative took possession of their five-acre land, which has a market worth
of Sh375 million.
The
siblings allege that the trustee used their youth to cheat them out of their
inheritance by allowing Nelson Warunge Kimani to take ownership of their land
in a lawsuit they filed with the Environment and Lands Court.
“We are on the verge of
being totally disinherited as we wallow in poverty while those who were meant
to protect us are benefitting from our misery. The Public Trustee who should be
the protector of deceased people’s assets failed us in his duty to protect our
land,” they said.
When
Ali Mohamed Zaid passed away in May 1973, Fatuma Ali, Abdalla Ali, Serifa Ali,
Zamida Ali, and Salima Ali claimed they were minors without the legal capacity
to be granted custody of their father’s assets.
They
testified before the court that the decision was made to give the properties to
the Public Trustee as the personal representative of the estate to retain in
their trust until they are of legal age because their mother, who later passed
away, was also only partially literate.
When
the siblings became adults, Fatuma claimed in her affidavit, they petitioned
for letters of administration to handle their father’s estate in 2009 only to
learn that Mr. Kimani, a Public Trustee officer, had covertly transferred the
5-acre land to himself.
We
discovered that he took advantage of his position to unfairly and dishonestly
benefit himself from the estate that belonged to my father and was given to him
as a public trustee. Kimani had divided the remaining 2.5 acres of our land
into smaller parcels and sold them to different customers, according to Fatuma.
The
siblings had also filed a complaint with the Director
of Criminal Investigation, which resulted in Kimani’s arrest and
prosecution for fraudulently acquiring the five-acre plot of land before the
Chief Magistrate Court in Kibera.
The
DCI investigations had found that Kimani transferred the land to himself in
1982 before subdividing and selling some portions to third parties and that the
siblings were minors at the time of their father’s passing and were unable to
pursue the succession issue.
To
stop the criminal case against Kimani while awaiting the outcome of the
ownership issue before the land’s court, the Director of Public Prosecution
submitted a request on May 11 through State lawyer Joseph Riungu.
Kimani
claimed that he legally purchased the property from the Public Trustee, who had
the exclusive authority to handle the estate, and denied robbing the siblings
of their inheritance.
“They
cannot claim that they were granted letters of administration in 2019, more
than 46 years after their father died.” “While I did work at the
Ministry of Constitutional and Home Affairs, I did not use my position to
acquire the land,” Kimani explained.
According
to Kimani, even if the land did not belong to him, he had the right to take
possession through adverse possession because he took vacant possession of it
in 1982 and has lived there ever since. An order from Justice Samson Okongo
stopped Kimani from selling or disposing of any of the land while the lawsuit
was being heard and decided.
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