The body of a Meru businessman Silas Igweta might continue to lay in a morgue for another 14 days despite the court ruling for the second wife to inter the remains of her husband.
This follows after the judgement by the Milimani principal magistrate Gerhard Gitonga giving the businessman’s second wife Sarah Kathambi to bury her husband.
The deceased aged 100, died on February 17, 2024, and he is yet to be buried after the two wives failed to agree on where their husband will be rested.
Following his death, the first wife who was married to Igweta in church in 1957 but later separated for over 40 years until he died on February claimed her husband did not die a natural death.
The postmortem was conducted and the pathologist stated the cause of his death as natural and suspicion by the first wife that the death was unnatural was proved to be untrue.
Grace Rigiri who is the first wife to the deceased started preparation to bury her husband whereby the second wife rushed to court to suspend the urinal claiming that the first wife had separated from Igweta for more than 40 years and he had been living with her husband until he died,
“The first wife married Igweta in church back in 1957 and they later separated for 40 years whereby Igweta did not go back to her house until he died,” stated part of her affidavit.
She claimed that the businessman wished to be buried in his ancestral land but Kathambi disclosed to the court that the ancestral land was sold years back to educate some of the children.
The court on March 27, 2023, terminated the suspension of the burial where the magistrate noted that the person who was staying with the deceased should bury her husband.
Honourable Gitonga accorded with the defence that the marriage vows come to an end after the death of the spouse and having the marriage certificate does not give you the legal rights for burial,
“The judge agreed with us there is no one becomes a wife or a husband to the corpse,” stated defence lawyer Dunstan Omari.
Following the judgement by Mr Gitonga, Grace Rigiri went on to appeal the decision of the court seeking a stay order of 14 days.
The defence lawyers to the second wife led by Danstan Omari urged the first wife to be considerate since she is not left out in the family to let Igweta be given a respective sendoff and withdraw the case to suspend his burial.
