Ruto ‘land seller’ denies involvement

By Isaiah Lucheli

Eldoret, Kenya: A woman accused of fraudulently selling former Eldoret North MP William Ruto land belonging to an internally displaced person claims to be innocent on the matter.

Dorothy Yator, a farmer in Eldoret, submitted in court that she was a victim of fraud and machination whose purpose was to benefit the Jubilee coalition aspiring deputy president with the land belonging to Adrian Muteshi, an IDP.

“I neither own the landnor got involved in anyland dealing with Ruto. The signatures on the documents are not mine. Claims that I sold the land to Ruto are false,” she said when she took the witness stand on Monday.

She narrated to court that she had suffered a lot since she was framed in the land case and disclosed she had sold part of her property to try and clear her name, had been forced to step down from a church position and had been branded as a con woman in Eldoret.

Yator told High Court judge Rose Ougo she had never met Ruto in person but had been seeing him in the media and it was only when he appeared in court following the commencement of the suit that she saw him physically for the first time.

She was responding to Muteshi’s lawyer Anthony Lubulellah who quoted Ruto’s statement, which had claimed the former MP had been approached by Yator with a proposal to sell land.

“I remember in 2008 when I was approached by a woman Dorothy Jemutai Yator offering to sell to me a parcel of land situated in Turbo area, Uasin Gishu County,” Ruto’s witness statement read in part, but Yator denies the claim.

She added that she had never applied for consent as indicated in the documents and said the claims that she had instructed Opiyo and Associates to subdivide the land and sell it were false.

During the case several anomalies were exposed in court, including the postal address, the passport size picture, the signatures, and the year when Yator is said to have gained possession of the land.

According to records produced in court, Yator is claimed to have gained possession of the land in 1980, a year she says she was a minor.

“In 1980 I did not have a national identification card. I was only six years old and could not own property,” she said.