Kibor's children dispute widow's report on Will in succession row

 

Mzee Kibor's fourth widow Eunitah Kibor with her first born son Reuben at the High Court in Eldoret. [File, Standard]

A section of the late prominent Uasin Gishu farmer-cum-politician Jackson Kibor’s family has asked the Eldoret High Court to strike out a forensic report tabled in court by his fourth widow, Eunitah Kibor.

While appearing virtually before Justice Emily Ominde in a pending succession battle, Kibor’s children, represented by lawyer Maathai Maina, told the court that the court had not ordered the report tabled by Kalya and Company Advocates and should, therefore, be disregarded.

This comes as two conflicting forensic audit reports on the validity of a purported Will detailing how the Sh16 billion estate left behind by the tycoon is to be distributed were presented in court.

The court had directed experts from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to conduct a forensic audit of Kibor’s purported Will, which had been tabled in court by the late billionaire’s youngest widow, Eunitah, who had engaged a private investigator to conduct an audit of the Will.

The reports from the DCI and the private investigator are contradictory. The DCI found that the Will was forged, while the private investigator claimed Kibor indeed authored it.

“The report tabled by the fourth widow and her advocate should be struck out because it was carried out without the instructions of this court. It is impossible that a private investigator was conducting a forensic audit on the purported Will at the same time that the said Will was at the DCI headquarters for a similar process,” Maina argued before the court.

DCI forensic document examiner, Chania Geoffrey, noted in his report that Kibor’s purported Will was forged, as the signatures involved were made by different authors.

“I have examined and compared the signature circled in pencil on the questioned document marked ‘A’ (Will of Jackson Kiprotich Kibor dated February 27 2021) with the known signatures pointed to in pencil on exhibits marked as B3. In my opinion, the signatures were made by different authors,” concluded the report.

Conversely, a report by Dignity Forensic Document Examiners, a firm associated with a retired senior DCI officer Daniel Gutu, asserted that the Will is genuine and was authored by Kibor.

Gutu stated that his firm was contracted by Kalya and Company Advocates on behalf of Eunitah and lawyer Jonah Bundotich Korir, who are named as executors of Kibor’s Will.

He explained that he was tasked with determining whether the signature on the Will was consistent with the known signature of the deceased.

“In my opinion, the questioned signatures on documents marked A1–A2 are similar and indistinguishable from the known signatures on documents marked B1–B14. The questioned signatures were signed by Jackson Kibor. The questioned and known signatures share similar individual writing characteristics, meaning they have a common origin,” Gutu stated in his report.

In January, Justice Reuben Nyakundi, who was presiding over the succession dispute before recusing himself following bias allegations, had ordered that the contested will be subjected to forensic investigations.

The judge directed Eunitah to surrender the original copy of the Will to the DCI headquarters.

Since the succession battle began two years ago, a section of the Kibor family, including two other widows and 27 children, has raised forgery allegations, prompting the court to order investigations to determine the authenticity of the contested Will.

Eunitah, 45, had claimed that her husband wrote Will on February 27, 2021. The case is set for mention and further directions on November 26.