Ruto seeks out-of-court settlement

By EVELYN KWAMBOKA

Eldoret North MP William Ruto now wants an out-of-court settlement for a case in which he is accused of illegally acquiring land after post-election violence.

The MP’s lawyer Katwa Kigen Wednesday told the court that he had agreed with parties in the matter to meet and explore possibilities to settle the issue.

High Court judge Rose Ougo ordered that the case be mentioned on March 5 and asked parties to comply with what they will agree on.

The Attorney General’s office asked the court to allow it file witness statements received from Lands Ministry in relation to the suit property.

Mr Adrian Muteshi claims Ruto illegally acquired his piece of land, Kaptabei Scheme, Uasin Gishu after the 2008 post-election violence.

Muteshi told the court in his evidence-in-chief last year that six workers at his 100-acre farm in Kaptabei Scheme, Uasin Gishu, were kicked out of the property in 2008 and have been unable to return.

"I went near the farm after post-election violence and was informed that Ruto had taken over the land," he told the court.

Muteshi’s efforts to conduct a search on whether ownership of the property had changed were unsuccessful and he wrote to the Commissioner of Lands, asking him to intervene.

"Ruto is feared in Eldoret and nobody was willing to give me information, fearing for their lives," he told the court.

On June 8, 2010, the district lands registrar wrote to the commissioner explaining that the land was under the name of Ms Dorothy Yator.

Yator allegedly sold the property to Ruto. But Muteshi said he had never changed the property’s title to secure money loaned to the woman by the settlement trustee.

He had identified the piece of land that previously belonged to a white settler and made an application to the then Lands Minister Jackson Angaine, seeking his approval to buy it.

His application was approved on October 3, 1968 and after paying the required amount plus some money for development, he acquired the land.