A WHITE Kenyan aristocrat was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter yesterday at the end of a case that has reopened colonial-era divisions of race and class.
Tom Cholmondeley was found guilty of killing Robert Njoya, a poacher, after a trial lasting two and a half years.
Cholmondeley (40), had admitted shooting dogs belonging to a poaching party on his family’s vast estate in the Great Rift Valley, but denied firing the shot that killed Njoya.
Judge Muga Apondi said there was no evidence of “malice aforethought” before finding the Old Etonian guilty of the lesser charge. “The accused must have been aware of the dangers of shooting,” he said.
“With the benefit of hindsight the accused should have shot in the air. I find it was the accused who shot the deceased resulting in death.”
Nairobi’s courthouse was packed for the verdict yesterday.Cameramen, lawyers and reporters jostled for space. One woman fainted in the growing heat as the judge laboured through his 320-page judgment.
Cholmondeley’s friends, who included the television wildlife expert Saba Douglas-Hamilton, held their hands over their mouths as he reached his verdict.
The 6ft 4in aristocrat stared impassively at the judge, betraying little emotion.
Last month two lay assessors, whose decision is not binding, found Cholmondeley not guilty.
Fred Ojiambo, Cholmondeley’s lawyer, said he was “struck dumb” by the verdict and would be preparing an appeal.
“The judge ignored the scientific evidence. He didn’t even set it aside – he just dismissed it without consideration,” he said.
Cholmondeley’s parents, Lord Hugh and Lady Ann Delamere, left without speaking to the assembled press.
Cholmondeley initially told police that he had been walking on his family’s 48,000-acre estate in May 2006 to help his friend, Carl Tundo, find a site for a new home.
They had stumbled across a poaching party with dogs and armed with machetes. He had dropped to one knee and used his rifle – carried as protection against buffalo – to kill two dogs and wound a third. It was only then he became aware of an injured man.
However, in evidence given in court, he said Tundo had used a handgun to shoot at the dogs.
His defence team argued that Cholmondeley’s gun did not fire the fatal shot.
However, the judge dismissed the story as an “afterthought” dreamed up as the enormity of the crime became clear.
Cholmondeley is due back in court on Tuesday for sentencing. Manslaughter carries a maximum of life in prison.
The case has echoes of the 1941 murder trial of Sir "Jock" Delves Broughton. It exposed the hedonistic lifestyles of Kenya's Happy Valley and was later made into a film, White Mischief.
Cholmondeley’s arrest provoked angry demonstrations three years ago. Some politicians called for a Zimbabwe-style land grab.
Barely a year earlier he had been charged in connection with another killing.
The case was dropped on the orders of the attorney general, fuelling accusations of one law for whites another for blacks.