A court has restored its order for the eviction of Aldai MP Maryanne Kitany from the Runda home she shared with Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi before their divorce.
Milimani Chief Magistrate Wendy Kagendo reinstated the order dated February 7, 2023, after dismissing Ms Kitany’s request for a stay of the intended eviction.
The magistrate allowed auctioneer John Mutwiri Mbijiwe of Bealine Auctioneers to proceed with the intended eviction of Ms Kitany from the residential house.
Mr Linturi hired the auctioneers to evict Ms Kitany from the house, which he claims belongs to him after another court dismissed her claims that she was married to the politician.
Magistrate Heston Nyaga Mbogo, now a High Court judge, while ruling on the divorce case filed by Ms Kitany, declared that there existed no marriage between her (Ms Kitany) and Mr Linturi.
As a result, she had no claim on the property based on the alleged marriage.
The eviction order requires the Officer Commanding Runda Police Station to provide security and police assistance in evicting Ms Kitany from the posh house in Runda.
In absence of the OCS, the magistrate directed that any other police officer above the rank of Assistant Inspector of Police can provide security during the eviction exercise.
Dismissed the divorce case
The eviction order is an additional blow to Ms Kitany as it comes five months after magistrate Nyaga dismissed the divorce case and ruled that she was not in a legal marriage to Mr Linturi.
She moved to court in 2018 seeking protection after the former legislator threw her out of the house.
The magistrate said witnesses called by the Aldai MP could not agree on the exact dates when the alleged customary marriage took place.
Ms Kitany had claimed that she got married to Mr Linturi in 2016 in a Nandi and Meru customary marriage.
She claimed that the former senator paid a dowry of Sh100,000 plus other goodies for her hand in marriage.
The court, however, said Mr Linturi was still married to another woman identified as Mercy Kiamenyi and the customary marriage claimed by Ms Kitany could not suffice.
“The court sympathises with the applicant who believed that she was validly married to Hon. Franklin Mithika Linturi,” the magistrate said as he dismissed the case.
Among those who testified in support of Ms Kitany were an uncle – Mr Andrew Chepkwony and her mother Rhoda Kitany.
Before bequeathing their daughter to him
Mr Chepkwony told the court that he and other elders called Mr Linturi aside, before bequeathing their daughter to him, and asked him why he did not have a wife at his age.
Mr Linturi had disputed the marriage claims and maintained that he was married to Ms Kaimenyi.
He said he only hosted her on compassionate grounds after she lost her job in 2017 as chief of staff at Deputy President William Ruto’s office.
He said he met her in 2013 and she pleaded to be accommodated temporarily in one of his houses and be allowed to establish a small office in one of the rooms.
She said before getting married, they had cohabited in her house in Kileleshwa and they later bought the Mae Ridge Villa property in 2015 and that the architectural drawings were under her name and that she supervised its construction.
