Court approves burial of marathon star Wanjiru
NYAHURURU, Kenya (AFP) - Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru was buried here Saturday amid tight security a month after his death and despite the protests of his mother, who insists her son was murdered.
The 24-year-old athlete, who died from head injuries sustained in mysterious circumstances at his home on May 16, was laid to rest at the family farm outside Nyahururu after several weeks of acrimonious bickering and lawsuits.
There was a heavy police presence both on the streets of this town in Kenya's Rift Valley to the north of Nairobi, where a requiem mass was said, and around the burial venue to guard against disruptions by disgruntled relatives.
Many of the police were in riot gear, and the thousands of mourners in attendance were frisked before being allowed in.
Emotions ran high as male relatives of the deceased carried out traditional Kikuyu burial rites and where the police conducted a 21 gun salute in honour of Wanjiru, who had been an honorary corporal.
His widow, Trizah Njeri broke down after the salute and had to be helped away.
Wanjiru's mother, Hannah was conspicuous by her absence at both the mass, held in the stadium where Wanjiru trained as a boy, and the burial, attended by Kenyan athletes, including former women's marathon champion Catherine Ndereba, long distance runners Daniel Komen, Benjamin Limo and Charles Kamathi and former Olympic champion Kipchoge Keino.
"We have lost a great man. We expected him to successfully defend his title at the London Olympics," Keino, who heads Kenya's Olympic committee, told mourners.
It was only on Friday that a court ruled the burial could go ahead, after Hannah Wanjiru who had already succeeded in getting a May 19 ban on the funeral taking place, failed to convince the magistrate to extend it.
Hannah contends that her daughter-in-law Trizah Njeri and the couple's guard killed her son and then made the incident look like an accidental fall.
Local police have since the beginning of the case stuck to the accidental fall theory but two out of the three pathologists who examined the body said the injuries sustained were not consistent with that theory.
The magistrate ruled any further postponement would just worsen the bad blood between family members. But he ordered further investigations into the death by a new team of investigators.
The marathon runner died on May 16, three years after making history at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when he fell from the balcony of his home after Njeri caught him with another woman.
He made history at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when his winning time destroyed a 24-year-old Olympic record. It gave Kenya its first Olympic marathon gold.
After Beijing, Wanjiru won the London marathon in 2009 and Chicago in 2009 and 2010.
© 2011 AFP