Body parts suspect loses lawyer

KENYAN nurse Kenneth Orina, who is accused of killing his wife at Grootfontein in September 2007 and then cutting up her remains in a failed effort to conceal his alleged crime, is without legal representation after making another pre-trial appearance in the High Court in Windhoek late last week.

Appearing in the High Court, where he is set to be tried on charges of murder and defeating or obstructing the course of justice, or attempting to do so, for a second pre-trial hearing on Thursday, Orina heard Acting Judge John Manyarara being informed that the law firm that has been representing him was withdrawing as his legal representatives.
Lawyer Yoleta Campbell, of the firm Metcalfe Legal Practitioners, told Acting Judge Manyarara that because Orina has not been able to contact his family in Kenya to secure funds for his legal representation, her firm had no choice but to withdraw as his lawyers at this stage.
Orina (36) indicated to the court that he preferred not to apply to the Directorate of Legal Aid to be provided with a State-funded defence lawyer. He told Acting Judge Manyarara that he would still get in touch with the person supposed to be channelling money to Namibia to pay his lawyers’ fees. He could not do so before Thursday, because he had been informed only two days earlier about the situation around his legal representation, he said.
Orina is now scheduled to return to the High Court on February 19 for a third pre-trial appearance. He remains in custody.
Orina was arrested on October 30 2007, six weeks after a first batch of human body parts was discovered lying next to a street running past the Grootfontein State Hospital.
Additional body parts were discovered at the town five days and eight days later respectively.
The body parts were the remains of Orina’s wife, Rose Chepkemoi Kiplangat (33), it is being alleged. Kiplangat, who was also a Kenyan national, was also a nurse.
Orina was not yet legally represented when he made a second appearance in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court on November 20 2007 and was asked to plead to charges of murder, defeating the course of justice and violating a dead body.
He pleaded guilty to all three charges. He told the presiding Magistrate that he and his wife had a violent argument in their flat at the Grootfontein Nurses’ Home on September 14 2007. During the argument, his wife threatened that she was going to kill him, he claimed. He also claimed that she was armed with a knife, which he said he tried to wrestle away from her.
During this tussle, she was accidentally cut on her neck, leading to her death, he claimed.
After realising that she had died he at first tried to take her body to a mortuary, but when he did not manage to do this, he used a knife to dismember her remains and proceeded to dispose of the body parts at various places around Grootfontein, Orina also told the court.
He was ‘confused’ as these macabre events unfolded, Orina told the Magistrate.
Orina has not yet given an indication what his plea at his trial in the High Court would be. werner@namibian.com.na