This archive report was first published on 3 October 2019.
On October 3, 2019, a Nairobi High Court ruled in favor of Philip Murgor, allowing him to represent Sarah Wairimu in the murder case of her husband Tob Cohen. The court's decision came after the prosecution, led by Cliff Ombeta, argued that Murgor was still a public prosecutor due to a gazette notice that had not been revoked.
However, Justice Stella Mutuku found that Murgor's resignation had not been contested, and he had been attending to other court issues, including with the office of the DPP. This cleared the way for Murgor to represent Wairimu, who had been accused of killing her 71-year-old Dutch husband.
Wairimu, who was arrested on August 29, 2019, after the police picked her up for the third time over the disappearance of Cohen on July 19, 2019, from their Lower Kabete home in Nairobi, denied the charges. She was facing murder charges alongside Peter Karanja.
After the court's ruling, Wairimu finally took a plea in the murder case, which had been deferred four times before. She denied killing her husband Cohen, a former CEO of Philips Electronics East Africa, whose body was found stashed in a septic tank at his home in Nairobi.
