Court Stops Burial of Matungu MP Justus Murunga After Petition by Alleged Lover
A Nairobi court has issued an order stopping the planned burial of the late Matungu MP Justus Murunga.
The funeral was halted pending the hearing and determination of a case filed by Agnes Wangui Wambiri, who claims she had two kids with the deceased.
She accuses the late MP’s family of excluding her from the burial plans and is worried that her children will be left out of their dad’s estate.
Wangui is seeking to have her two children and herself recognized as family and be allowed to participate in funeral arrangements.
She further wants the court to order the collection of DNA samples from Murunga’s body and her kids for comparison and confirmation of their paternity.
In court documents, Wangui says she entered into a romantic relationship with Murunga in 2012, leading to the birth of the two minors aged seven and three years.
“All along the deceased intimated to me that he lived at Utawala with Ms. Christabel Murunga and thus around May 2016 he rented a house for me and our son in Ruai,” Wangui says through lawyer Danstan Omari.
The MP, she says, used to foot her monthly rent and maintenance costs through MPesa but their relationship got rocky after he won the election in 2017.
“The deceased never wanted the public nor his family to learn of the existence of these two children, and even denied me his identification card for purposes of procuring birth certificates for the children,” she says, adding that the minors are Murunga’s biological children.
“Prior to his death, I had spoken to him on November 12, 2020, checking up on him after being discharged from hospital. He sent me Sh1,300 for a gas refill and later Sh4,000 as maintenance costs.”
The court barred Murunga’s family from carrying out any funeral rites until a DNA test is conducted to ascertain the paternity of Wangui’s two kids. The matter will be heard on November 26th.
Murunga succumbed to Covid-19 while being taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Mumias last Saturday.