Body parts suspect in court

THE murder case against Kenyan nurse Kenneth Bunge Orina, who is accused of butchering his wife at Grootfontein last year, was yesterday postponed again for further investigation.

Orina (35) appeared before Magistrate Godwin Chizhande in the Grootfontein Magistrate’s Court on charges of murder, defeating the course of justice and violating a dead body. He is accused of murdering his Kenyan wife, Rose Chepkemoi Kiplangat (33), at Grootfontein between September 13 and 17 last year, and of then dissecting her body and discarding her remains at various spots around Grootfontein and on the outskirts of the town.Orina’s court appearance yesterday took place 76 days after he gave a detailed account of the events that resulted in his wife’s death and his ultimately failed subsequent attempts to get rid of her remains without being detected.PRIVATE LAWYER Orina was neatly dressed in a suit, open-necked collared shirt and black shoes of which the laces had been removed for his latest court appearance.His hands were cuffed behind his back when he arrived at court and when he was escorted from the court building again under Police guard.The cuffs were only removed when he was locked up in a holding cell before going into the courtroom and during his appearance before the Magistrate.With his last appearance on November 20, when he offered guilty pleas to all three charges, Orina told the Magistrate that he wanted to apply for State-funded legal aid.When Magistrate Chizhande asked him if he had applied for legal aid in the meantime, Orina replied that he had now decided to get a private lawyer to represent him.His lawyer is Richard Metcalfe, he said.Metcalfe is regarded as one of Namibia’s top criminal lawyers.The Magistrate postponed Orina’s case to April 3, after Public Prosecutor Frieda Matsi told the Magistrate that some forensic laboratory results were still outstanding and that further investigations also needed to be carried out in the meantime.The Magistrate ordered that Orina should remain in Police custody until his next court appearance.GRUESOME FIND Orina was working at the Grootfontein State Hospital at the time of his arrest on October 30 last year.It took place six weeks after a human head and forearms were discovered in a black plastic bag left in the grass next to Grootfontein’s Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange Street, which runs past the town’s State Hospital.More body parts were found on the southwestern outskirts of the town on September 22 and 25.Orina made a first, hushed-up court appearance on November 1.On November 20, he made a second, unscheduled appearance before a Magistrate, and proceeded to give his plea to the charges.In a plea explanation, he claimed that when he returned to the Grootfontein Nurses’ Home after work on September 14 last year, he found his wife in an argumentative and aggressive mood.He was astonished and tried in vain to calm his wife down when she told him that she was going to kill him and then also take her own life, Orina said, according to the court record containing his plea explanation.An argument broke out between him and his wife, and she eventually tried to corner him in their bedroom while armed with a knife, Orina claimed.Orina and Kiplangat became involved in a struggle over the knife, and when he tried to pull the weapon out of her hand, she was cut on her neck, Orina stated.That was accidental, he said.Kiplangat was still aggressive and threatened to kill him when he told her that she had a cut on her neck, Orina said.He said he soon realised that she was in a serious condition, and then tried to stop her bleeding, but she collapsed and died.When he realised that she was dead, he “became confused” and at first wanted to take her body to the hospital’s mortuary, Orina said.He could not manage to do that, though, and then used a knife to cut her body into parts.When asked why he did this, he answered, according to the record of his plea explanation: “Because I loved her and I did not want her body to rot, I wanted to take her to the mortuary but the process did not materialise.”When asked if he was forced by anyone to dismember Kiplangat and dispose of her body parts, Orina answered: “No, it is just because I was confused where to put them.”He eventually disposed of her cut-up remains at various spots around Grootfontein, he said.Kiplangat was the mother of one child and was also a trained nurse who was in Namibia in order to start working as a nurse with the Ministry of Health, it has been reported in the Kenyan media.He is accused of murdering his Kenyan wife, Rose Chepkemoi Kiplangat (33), at Grootfontein between September 13 and 17 last year, and of then dissecting her body and discarding her remains at various spots around Grootfontein and on the outskirts of the town.Orina’s court appearance yesterday took place 76 days after he gave a detailed account of the events that resulted in his wife’s death and his ultimately failed subsequent attempts to get rid of her remains without being detected.PRIVATE LAWYER Orina was neatly dressed in a suit, open-necked collared shirt and black shoes of which the laces had been removed for his latest court appearance.His hands were cuffed behind his back when he arrived at court and when he was escorted from the court building again under Police guard.The cuffs were only removed when he was locked up in a holding cell before going into the courtroom and during his appearance before the Magistrate.With his last appearance on November 20, when he offered guilty pleas to all three charges, Orina told the Magistrate that he wanted to apply for State-funded legal aid.When Magistrate Chizhande asked him if he had applied for legal aid in the meantime, Orina replied that he had now decided to get a private lawyer to represent him.His lawyer is Richard Metcalfe, he said.Metcalfe is regarded as one of Namibia’s top criminal lawyers. The Magistrate postponed Orina’s case to April 3, after Public Prosecutor Frieda Matsi told the Magistrate that some forensic laboratory results were still outstanding and that further investigations also needed to be carried out in the meantime.The Magistrate ordered that Orina should remain in Police custody until his next court appearance.GRUESOME FIND Orina was working at the Grootfontein State Hospital at the time of his arrest on October 30 last year.It took place six weeks after a human head and forearms were discovered in a black plastic bag left in the grass next to Grootfontein’s Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange Street, which runs past the town’s State Hospital.More body parts were found on the southwestern outskirts of the town on September 22 and 25.Orina made a first, hushed-up court appearance on November 1.On November 20, he made a second, unscheduled appearance before a Magistrate, and proceeded to give his plea to the charges.In a plea explanation, he claimed that when he returned to the Grootfontein Nurses’ Home after work on September 14 last year, he found his wife in an argumentative and aggressive mood.He was astonished and tried in vain to calm his wife down when she told him that she was going to kill him and then also take her own life, Orina said, according to the court record containing his plea explanation.An argument broke out between him and his wife, and she eventually tried to corner him in their bedroom while armed with a knife, Orina claimed.Orina and Kiplangat became involved in a struggle over the knife, and when he tried to pull the weapon out of her hand, she was cut on her neck, Orina stated.That was accidental, he said.Kiplangat was still aggressive and threatened to kill him when he told her that she had a cut on her neck, Orina said.He said he soon realised that she was in a serious condition, and then tried to stop her bleeding, but she collapsed and died.When he realised that she was dead, he “became confused” and at first wanted to take her body to the hospital’s mortuary, Orina said.He could not manage to do that, though, and then used a knife to cut her body into parts.When asked why he did this, he answered, according to the record of his plea explanation
: “Because I loved her and I did not want her body to rot, I wanted to take her to the mortuary but the process did not materialise.”When asked if he was forced by anyone to dismember Kiplangat and dispose of her body parts, Orina answered: “No, it is just because I was confused where to put them.”He eventually disposed of her cut-up remains at various spots around Grootfontein, he said.Kiplangat was the mother of one child and was also a trained nurse who was in Namibia in order to start working as a nurse with the Ministry of Health, it has been reported in the Kenyan media.