NAIROBI (KENYA)
Daily Nation
November 18, 2017
By Kitavi Mutua
In Summary
The priest contacted Ms Mutua, offering to start meeting the costs of raising the child who had now turned three years.
Mother and child were found the following morning by villagers who alerted police.
Fresh details have emerged in a case in which a Catholic priest is accused of impregnating a high school student and attempting to kill her and the child.
This comes ahead of the next court appearance later this month.
Fr Japheth Mwove Kimanzi, who was in charge of Nuu Catholic Parish in Kitui County, is alleged to have taken advantage of the woman, then a 15-year-old Form One student, to defile her before attempting to murder her and the baby, a court was told.
DEFILE
The victim of the brutal attack, Veronica Musali Mutua, told Kitui Chief Magistrate Maryanne Murage that Fr Kimanzi enticed her using biscuits and pocket money.
Fr Kimanzi, who has since been ex-communicated from the church, has denied the two charges — attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm. He is expected in court on November 22 where he will be put on his defence. He is out on a Sh100,000 bond.
In her chilling testimony before Ms Murage on July 13 this year, Ms Mutua, 23, said the priest lured her into an illicit relationship in 2011 while she was still a Form One student at Mwambiu Mixed Secondary School in Mwingi Sub-County.
“He started by giving pocket money and I thought he meant well. I trusted him because he was our priest and he would ask me to accompany him to visit families within our area as part of his evangelical work,” she told the court.
The relationship grew and the priest began sneaking into their home and spending the night with her whenever her parents were away, according to the woman.
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