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'I couldn't have shot that man'
08/07/2008 21:43 - (SA)
Nairobi - The heir to Kenya's most famous white settler family told a murder trial on Tuesday he could not have shot a local stonemason who was poaching on his land, implying that a friend might have killed the man instead.
Thomas Cholmondeley, the great-grandson of Lord Delamere, admits shooting dogs belonging to a group of poachers he confronted on his Soysambu ranch in May 2006.
But the 40-year-old denied shooting Robert Njoya.
"Had I shot him, he should have fallen where I shot the dogs," Cholmondeley told a packed High Court in Nairobi in his first testimony since he was arrested more than two years ago.
"I was shocked and surprised. I couldn't understand what had happened ... From my angle, I could not have shot that man."
The trial is the second murder case against the Eton-educated aristocrat, who was also accused of killing a wildlife ranger in April 2005.
That case was dropped for lack of evidence, triggering an outcry and suggestions from many Kenyans that their country still had two sets of laws - one for whites and one for blacks.
After his arrest, Cholmondeley told police that he and a friend had been walking at his sprawling ranch when they saw five men carrying machetes, bows and arrows and a dead impala.
In court on Tuesday, he said that his companion - local rally driver Carl Tundo - had also been carrying a firearm, and Cholmondeley implied that Tundo might have shot the poacher.
Packed court
He said he did not tell police about Tundo's pistol at first because Tundo, who he called Flash, had asked him not to.
"That night in the cells, Flash was really upset and tearful," Cholmondeley said. "He asked me not to mention it (his pistol) for fear that he would get into trouble."
Cholmondeley, wearing a blue suit, testified for about 90 minutes with his parents Lord and Lady Delamere looking on. Also in court were his wife and Njoya's widow.
His lawyer Fred Ojiambo said he planned to call six more defence witnesses, including a ballistics expert from the police national firearms bureau.
Both cases against Cholmondeley have fanned simmering colonial-era resentment against white settlers who snatched large swathes of land for themselves during British rule.
His family is one of Kenya's largest landowners and has lived in the east African country for close to a century.
The flamboyant lifestyle of the original Lord Delamere and other wealthy white settlers from central Kenya's "Happy Valley" set inspired the book and 1987 film White Mischief.
Although many Kenyans complain about white farmers, many others also resent wealthy black Kenyans who gave themselves huge tracts of land after independence from Britain in 1963.
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