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Supreme Court Judge Justice Isaac Lenaola and the late former assistant minister John Keen’s daughter  have been accused of  transferring  43 immovable properties worth Sh1.48 billion and further withdrew Sh89 million from various banks belonging to the deceased.

In an application filed by Keen’s first-born daughter Victoria Naishorua Keen through Senior Counsel Philip Murgor the daughter stated that even after filing the Petition for Probate of Written Will of  February 2017, and while various applications were pending before the High Court in Nairobi by beneficiaries for reasonable provision, the late lawyer Maina Wachira in collusion with the Lenaola, Rosemary Sanau Keen and Pamela Soila Keen fraudulently transferred the properties and withdrew cash from the bank accounts.

Naishorua, the first of at least 14 children of Keen, has through Counsel Murgor has also claimed that Justice Lenaola and the late Maina Wachira also colluded and transferred a prime property in the exclusive Karen suburb valued at Sh45 million in December 2016 when Keen was extremely ill and literally on his death bed.

Keen had allegedly left a Will with Maina Wachira of Maina Wachira Company Advocates, and Keen died on December 25, 2016 at the age of 88.

Legal document

The land, LR No. 2259/564, was transferred just 11 days before Keen died and Murgor has argued that he therefore could not have known or appreciated the contents of the complex legal document that he was appending his signature to, if indeed the document is authentic.

“On the said 14th December, 2016, when the Deceased purportedly signed the said Transfer, he was extremely ill and literally on his death bed, and therefore could not have known of appreciated the contents of the complex legal document that he was appending his signature to, if indeed the signed transfer/signature of the Deceased is authentic,” the application reads.

He adds that Lenaola procured the signature of Keen “as he lay dying with only 11 days to live”, an action no responsible or ethical advocate should have participated in, or allowed to take place, at all.

“He should have waited to complete the transaction after issuance of a Confirmation of the Grant by the Honourable Court, through the executors or administrators, as the case may be,” he added. Murgor has also said the signature on the will was forged adding that on September 12 this year, the advocates of the applicant, on her behalf, instructed a specialist from Spectral Forensic Services to examine and provide a forensic document examination report in respect of the questioned signatures of the Deceased, including those on the purported Last Will and Testament dated 2nd December, 2015, in comparison with known signatures of the Deceased.

“Spectral Forensic Services rendered the report in which he found, inter alia, that the purported signatures of the Deceased on the copy of the purported Last Will and Testament of the late John Keen dated 2nd December, 2015, marked Al and the documents marked A4, AS, A6 and A7 were all forgeries,” he stated.

Forensic services

He further stated: “In view of the findings of Martin Papa, of Spectral Forensic Services in his report dated September 13, it is evident that the late Maina Wachira in collusion with the 1st, 4th, and 5th Respondents were from the outset acting as executors and trustees of the Deceased’s Estate on the basis of a forged Will and Testament dated 2, 2015.

Murgor stated that it was well known within the Keen family, that while Justice Lenaola and the deceased were indeed friends, behind the back of the deceased, Lenaola and Rosemary Sanau started having an extraordinary, and very close relationship, which, when discovered by Keen, caused him great anger, distress and anguish, making it unlikely that he would trust and appoint Lenaola to be executor and trustee of his vast Estate together with Sanau, who was notoriously unfaithful to him, as executors and trustees.

The purported transfer was lodged for registration in the Lands Office on January 18, 2017, and transferred on the same day, 14 days after the purported Will and Testament dated December, 2 2015 was read, 24 days after the death of the Deceased and 13 days before a Petition for Grant of Probate had been filed, let alone confirmed.

“Therefore, the Transfer amounted to the criminal offence of intermeddling contrary to Section 45 of the Law of Succession Act, which amounts to misconduct on the part of the said Respondents as advocates of the High Court of Kenya, and in the special case of the 1st respondent (Lenaola), to gross misconduct as a judge of the Supreme Court of Kenya.

According to Murgor, the position of executor/trustee of an estate, is one of absolute trust, confidence and impartiality which would have been required of Lenaola, in order for him to be entrusted to deal with the Deceased’s vast Estate, and large polygamous family in a fair, equitable and accountable manner, and particularly because there were already existing tensions among Keen’s five children, for a variety of reasons.