Sarah Wairimu Says Dutch Husband Tob Cohen Was Murdered While She Was in Police Custody

Sarah Wairimu, the widow of slain Dutch tycoon Tob Cohen, has filed an application seeking to have the murder case against her thrown out.

Wairimu, who is charged with the murder of Cohen, argues that the case is founded on hearsay and built on a malicious investigative process.

Through her lawyer Philip Murgor, she further claims that her husband was killed when she was held in custody over his disappearance.

She adds that Cohen was murdered by people who are well known and are being protected by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).

“My husband was murdered by people who wanted to grab our Sh500 million matrimonial home in Kitisuru. They had me arrested on August 28, 2020, then colluded with investigators to implicate me after planting his body in a septic tank while I was in custody,” Wairimu says in an affidavit.

She is further challenging Cohen’s Will, which denied her the opportunity to inherit his multi-million-shilling estate. Wairimu’s lawyer Murgor says an expert analysis confirmed that the Will was a forgery.

“The purported Will that did not leave her anything was fraudulently procured. It was done by powerful forces who want to grab her matrimonial home. It is so unfortunate that she is being depicted as a stranger in her own home,” Murgor notes.

Cohen bequeathed 50 percent of the matrimonial home to his sister Gabrielle Straten and the remaining half to her two children. He also shared the Sh100 million cash in his bank account equally to his sister and brother Bernard Cohen.

Wairimu in her affidavit further denied kidnapping, assaulting, or killing her husband, saying they had lived together for 29 years.

Cohen, who had lived in Kenya for 32 years, went missing on July 19th, 2019 before he was found dead on September 13th. 

His decomposed body was retrieved from an underground tank at his home in Kitisuru estate and was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Nairobi on September 24th, 2019.

A postmortem examination revealed that the deceased suffered severe head trauma inflicted by a blunt object and succumbed to a blow to the right side of the head.