A senior police officer was taken to task by Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi over the quality of photographs of the body of 2008 Olympic marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru.
Sergeant Joel Kosgey had a difficult time explaining to Francis Andayi wondered why the officer never photographed the body from different positions.
At the tail end of his testimony, Kosgey was asked to demonstrate how he took the photographs in relation to the architectural design of Wanjiru’s Nyahururu residence where the athlete's body was found.
“Why is there a dark shadow on these photos? Why are they not telling a story about the death of Wanjiru sequentially? What time did you take them?” Mr Andayi asked Kosgey.
The crime scene officer said he took the photographs at 0045 hours on May 11, 2011.
He told the chief magistrate that the flash of the camera he used did not produce sharp photographs as it was not a digital one.
About the body injuries, he said he only saw the blood that was oozing from the mouth and nostrils of the late Olympic champion.
“I took photos of the injuries I saw when the body was shown to me 30-45 minutes after he had died,” Kosgey told Mr Andayi.
Answering questions from family lawyer Muendo Uvyu, the policeman said he did not see injuries on the back of Wanjiru’s head stated by pathologist Moses Njue.
In his testimony, Dr Njue told the court Wanjiru was murdered at his Nyahururu home.
The assailant attacked him outside his house with a blunt metal object that shattered the back of the athlete’s skull shortly after he jumped off or was pushed from the balcony and may have died on impact, the former Chief Government Pathologist said.
The doctor ruled out a possible suicide theory that the police advanced after the 2011 incident.
He said that four of Mr Wanjiru’s colleagues and his relatives had raised eyebrows when the nature of injuries found on the athlete’s body failed to corroborate a clinical resume presented as the cause of his death.
“I did not see injuries on his back head when the body was turned at the hospital bed where it had been laid,” Kosgey said.
He said he heard that Wanjiru was a police officer attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) at the time of his demise.
