Julius Sunkuli is currently a member of parliament in Kilgoris Constituency. Even as he serves his constituents, he has to grapple with a past tainted by claims of murder and rape of a minor.
The former Minister of State in the Office of the President, Julius Sunkuli, who served during the totalitarian reign of Kanu under President Daniel arap Moi, is no stranger to controversy.
The former Minister earned international fame owing to his alleged involvement in rape and murder, accusations he has denied vehemently.
During his heyday, Sunkuli, who also served as Kanu’s Secretary General, is accused of having abused his office as a people’s servant by allegedly preying on innocent school girls.
Sunkuli was accused of preying on a 14-year-old girl from his constituency after her family approached him for financial assistance to raise her school fees in 2000.
However, the former Minister allegedly told the mother that he wanted to see the person he would be assisting, and requested to see the minor. Evidence adduced before court indicated that he achieved this by visiting the girl’s home at night, where he convinced the parents to release her into his custody.
Later, he allegedly took her to the bush where he repeatedly raped her and later took her to his home, where she was forced to sleep in a children’s bedroom. She later conceived following the regular rapes but the former Minister refused to take responsibility. The minor gave birth to a baby boy.
When the minor filed rape charges against the former Minister through outspoken Catholic priest, Father John Anthony Kaiser, and the Federation of Kenyan Women Lawyers (FIDA), the minister allegedly taunted her that she was wasting her time as he was untouchable.
Fr. Kaiser was later found dead. The Mill Hill priest was born in Perham, Minnesota, USA, on November 29, 1932 and was ordained on July 11, 1964. He was posted to Kisii in 1993 before being transferred to Ngong Diocese, where he remained until his death.
The girl had testified that Sunkuli raped her repeatedly in his office when she was 14, and that local administrator, John ole Rompe, and senior policeman, Scaver Mbogho, kidnapped her after she reported the matter to police. The kidnap and conspiring to defeat the cause of justice charges against ole Rompe and Mbogho were also dropped.
Three years later, the minor, then aged 17, applied to drop charges against Sunkuli, who was at the time being treated as the prime suspect in the murder of Fr. Kaiser.
Immediately after the ruling was made, security personnel whisked the minor to an unknown destination, while hundreds of Sunkuli’s supporters danced outside the courts.
By championing the plight of the poor, at times faulting then infallible president Daniel arap Moi and calling for his arraignment before the International Criminal Court for abetting ethnic cleansing in the Rift Valley, Fr. Kaiser invited ire from the powers that be.
Fr. Kaiser’s problems, according to American author, Christopher Goffard’s You Will See Fire: A Search for Justice in Kenya, intensified after he antagonised Sunkuli and other senior government officials, at times leading to betrayal by his own church.
Goffard writes that shortly before his death, Fr. Kaiser received summons from Giovanni Tonucci, the Papal Nuncio and Pope’s representative in Kenya, which disturbed him greatly although he did not confide its contents to anybody.
He grabbed his duffel bag, then climbed into his truck with his axe and rosary beads, and his Bible, neck brace, and shotgun, disappearing down the red-dirt road on the half-day trip to Nairobi.
Prior to the Nuncio’s summons, Kaiser had in 2000 received a letter warning him “utaona moto” (you will see fire) but this did not stop him from advocating for justice and peace, although his superiors thought he was championing a lost cause which only served to provoke the Government.
He had stoked fire and dared fate when he testified before the Akiwumi Commission and accused the Moi Government of committing atrocities against its citizens in 1998.
On August 24, 2000, at 6 a.m., Kaiser’s body was found near two acacia trees on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway. The Moi Government invited the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detectives from Washington, led by Thomas Carey, to conduct investigations into Fr. Kaiser’s death. The team was summoned by then US Ambassador to Kenya, Johnnie Carson, who had promised that the Bureau’s investigation would be independent. After extensive investigations, the FBI concurred with Kenya’s CID that Fr. Kaiser had committed suicide.
The FBI concluded that Fr. Kaiser probably decided to commit suicide instead of being forced by his superiors to leave Kenya. The initial post-mortem conducted by the Kenyan Government, concluded that Kaiser had committed suicide.
A subsequent post-mortem conducted by the FBI also concluded that Kaiser killed himself, despite major discrepancies in the evidence. However, Fr. Kaiser’s lawyer, Mbuthi Gathenji, maintained that his own investigation pointed to a potentially explosive cover-up by both the Kenyan Government and the FBI.
According to Gathenji, Kaiser’s death had all the hallmarks of a state-sanctioned hit, carried out by a cadre of professional assassins. It was the work of what he called “Murder, Inc.” — a vast apparatus of spies, security forces, and hitmen with links to State House.
The FBI also grounded its conclusion on the fact that Kaiser had a history of depression in his family and that is why he would cry during mass, or feel uncomfortable. He was therefore unhinged and likely to commit suicide, they concluded.
In his book, Goffard sees Kaiser’s bipolar disorder as “a condition that informed his courage, his sense of justice, his fearlessness”, likening him to some great men suffering similar fate, such as Lincoln and Churchill who also suffered from depression.
The conspiracy theorists were vindicated when a Kenyan Mill Hill priest from Ukwala Parish, Kisumu Archdiocese, Fr. James Juma, was forced by his superior to leave Kenya for South Africa after he took the government of Moi to task over the mysterious death of Fr. Kaiser.
While testifying before the inquest formed to probe Fr. Kaiser’s death, Sunkuli denied any involvement and declared he was as interested as other Kenyans to know who had killed the cleric so that they could face justice.
Sunkuli told the inquest headed by Principal Magistrate, Maureen Odero, that the plot to incriminate him in criminal activities was hatched by his political enemies, including the late George Saitoti, William ole Nitimama, and John Konchellah, after learning that then President Moi was planning to elevate him (Sunkuli) to the office of Vice President.
Having been absolved of the rape charges and accusations of killing Kaiser, Sunkuli underwent a complete metamorphosis, from being a hard-hitting Secretary General of the dictatorial Kanu to a diplomat representing Kenya’s Government, elected on a reform platform, as an ambassador in China.
The former Minister underwent a political rebirth and is now representing the people of Kilgoris on a KANU ticket.