Eston Barak Mbaja who died in the US on Monday lived a quiet life until the gruesome murder of his brother – former Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko – thrust him into the limelight.
Mbaja, a bespectacled and towering former district commissioner in the Kanu era who was best known for his love of jungle jackets, will be buried with any secrets he had about Ouko's macabre killing.
His death remains one of Kenya’s most infamous political assassinations.
Before he fled to the US for a second time in 2004, 14 years after the charred body of his brother was found dumped at the foot of Got Alila in Muhoroni, Kisumu County, Mbaja had dropped a bombshell when he claimed to know those who had kidnapped, tortured and killed Dr Ouko.
In an exclusive interview with this writer in February 2004 at his Nyahera rural home on the outskirts of Kisumu town, Mbaja presented a figure of an angry and frustrated man as he vowed never to rest until his brother's murderers were found and punished.
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"The killers of my younger brother are still alive and I know them. They also want to kill me because they know I know them. That’s why I fled the country soon after the killing,” he said.
He narrated how he escaped from his would-be captors who had allegedly been sent to kidnap and kill him.
“I discarded my expensive suit and took up a tattered shirt and trouser to escape. This was only days after I was arrested and tortured to scare me from speaking about the murder,” he said.
Under the protection of a few junior plainclothes police officers who had worked under him when he was a DC, Mbaja crossed into Uganda through the Busia border before flying to the US, where he was granted political asylum.
"I would be dead if I had delayed in Kenya even for five minutes,” he said.
Mbaja was back in the country ostensibly to spill the beans. "I am ready to tell the police what I know and will name names."
Eston Barak Mbaja. He always claimed to know who ordered his sibling's murder. [File]
When he slipped out of the country a second time, a commission set up to investigate Ouko's death had issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to honour summons to turn up and testify.
His lawyers – Maxwel Ombogo and Otieno Kajwang’ – reported to the Justice Evan Gicheru-led commission that their client had gone missing.
He was right to fear for his life. Many witnesses ended up dying mysteriously, leaving detectives with little to go on in unravelling the murder that changed the country's political landscape.
Mbaja, who died aged 79 in a hospital where he was being treated for a stroke he suffered five years ago, had always denied allegations that he was not on good terms with Ouko before his death.
Statements given to Scotland Yard detective John Troon, who was called in by the Kanu government to investigate the murder, revealed that Mbaja and Ouko had a strained relationship over what was alleged to be a long-standing family rivalry.
But Mbaja was quoted in Troon's report saying that they had reconciled long before Ouko was killed.
The brother also had a falling out with Ouko's wife, Christabel, who died in a road accident in 2017 while driving from Kisumu to her Koru home.
At the time, Mbaja disagreed with her decision to sell her home in Nyahera a few years after her husband's death.
Yesterday, one of Mbaja’s younger brothers, Maurice Seda, said his health deteriorated after he was detained in 1990 and tortured at Nyayo House for a week.
"Since then, my brother’s health was never the same. We do not know what happened when he was detained,” Seda said.
Family sources told The Standard that Mbaja had unsuccessfully sought audience with the late President Daniel Moi and President Mwai Kibaki over Ouko's death.
The brother had previously been quoted saying that Mbaja also tried to meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta through proxies weeks before he flew back to the US last year. "He kept insisting that he wanted to meet the president to present to him a secret document."
Two other brothers, Collins and William, live largely quiet lives in Nyahera.
During an interview with a local media station last year, Mbaja insisted that some of the people who participated in Ouko's murder were still alive.
He had earlier claimed that he was offered a post as a nominated MP and a seat in the Cabinet, but only if he dropped the claims about his brother's killers.
When he returned to Kenya in 2003 after President Kibaki's election, Mbaja dipped into politics and vied for the Kisumu West parliamentary seat before losing to Joab Omino.
Mbaja served in various capacities in the provincial administration, rising to deputy provincial commissioner and deputy secretary in the Attorney General’s office.
His children live in the US. The family told The Standard that Mbaja’s body will be flown home for burial at a date that is yet to be announced.
