Nurse Sticks to Murder Denial

Werner Menges

13 April 2011

THE trial of Kenyan nurse Kenneth Bunge Orina, who is accused of murdering his wife at Grootfontein in September 2007 and then cutting up her body in an attempt to conceal the killing, is set to continue in the High Court at Oshakati next week.

The trial was postponed to April 18 after Orina testified in his own defence before Judge Christie Liebenberg last week. In his testimony, Orina offered to the court a blanket denial of all the allegations against him.

Orina (38) is charged with counts of murder and defeating or obstructing the course of justice, or attempting to do so.

He is accused of murdering his wife, fellow Kenyan nurse Rose Chepkemoi Kiplangat (33), in their flat at the Grootfontein State Hospital Nurses’ Home during the period of September 14 to 17 2007.

Human body parts alleged to have been the remains of Kiplangat were found at four different scenes in and around Grootfontein between September 17 and 25 2007.

Orina was arrested on October 30 2007.

He told Judge Liebenberg last week that his wife left their home, supposedly to go and stay with a friend, and that she never returned.

Orina disputed that the body parts found at Grootfontein were his wife’s remains.

He also claimed he had been mistreated and tortured by the Police after his arrest, and that he was finally forced to make a statement to the magistrate and to point out a set of scenes at Grootfontein. Orina also claimed that Police officers instructed him what to say in the statement to the magistrate and when he pointed out the scenes.

In the statement, which Judge Liebenberg ruled to be admissible as evidence in the trial on January 18, Orina told the magistrate he and his wife had a violent fight in their flat on September 14 2007. Orina claimed his wife threatened to kill him and that she, armed with a knife, attacked him during the altercation. In a struggle with her, while he was trying to get the knife out of her hand, he accidentally cut her on her neck, Orina claimed.

This injury proved to be deadly, he claimed.

Orina added that he wanted to report the incident to the Police, but could not get himself to actually do this. The next day, he said, he decided to cut her body into pieces so that he could take her remains to a mortuary. When he could not get the body parts to the mortuary, he decided to dispose of them in the bush, he said.

In other evidence that the prosecution has placed before the court, Judge Liebenberg was told that a fingerprint of Orina was found on a black plastic bag that contained the first body parts that were found. DNA matching Orina’s was also found on latex gloves that lay at the scene where the first batch of body parts – a human head and two forearms – were discovered.

Orina’s defence lawyer, Inonge Mainga, is expected to call a witness to testify in Orina’s defence when the trial continues.

State advocate Neville Wamambo is prosecuting.

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