Diplomat, Three Kenyans Convicted of Murder of Venezuelan Ambassador to Kenya

Four suspects, among them three Kenyans, have been found guilty of the 2012 murder of Venezuelan Ambassador to Kenya Olga Fonseca.

Fonseca, who was the Latin American nation’s acting ambassador at the time, was strangled at her official residence in Runda, Nairobi in July 2012.

The High Court in Nairobi on Thursday convicted Venezuelan diplomat Dwight Sagaray and three Kenyans Ahmed Omindo, Alex Sifuma, and Moses Kiprotich, a former police officer who was set to join the US marines the following year.

The fifth accused person Kipng’eno Chelogoi, a security guard found in possession of the deceased’s mobile phone, was acquitted. The court determined that there was no evidence linking the security guard to the murder plot.

The court found that the killers were paid Sh468,000 by a Kenyan named Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, who is still at large, to eliminate the ambassador. Hassan served as Sagaray’s administrator.

Sagaray was the first secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Nairobi and was heading the mission before Fonseca’s arrival.

Fonseca was killed barely two weeks after she arrived in Kenya to replace former ambassador Gerardo Carrillo-Silva, who allegedly left the country after an embassy staff accused him of sexual harassment.

The killers tied the body to her bed with a ligature to make it appear like she committed suicide, but pathologists told the court that she had been strangled to death.

Justice Roseline Langat-Korir found that the ambassador was killed by three men led by Mohammed Ahmed Hassan, who has never been arrested.

The court found that Fonseca was killed as a result of a power struggle between her and Sagaray, who opposed her posting in Nairobi as he was interested in the job.

 “From the evidence it is clear that the first accused (Mr Sagaray) resisted the taking of over of the Embassy by Ms Fonseca,” Justice Korir said.