Disgraced former TJRC Chairman Bethwel Kiplagat is Dead at 81

The disgraced former chairman of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission Bethwel Kiplagat passed away on Friday, July 14, at the Nairobi Hospital. He had been ill for sometime.

Kiplagat was the chairman of TJRC which was mandated to investigate and report on causes of conflicts and gross human rights violations in the country between 1963 to 2008. Some of the areas the team was to look at included economic crimes, illegal acquisition of public land, maginalisation of communities and ethnic violence.

He served the TJRC for two years before he was disgracefully hounded out of the office after claims that he is one of the people who was responsible for the murder of former foreign affairs minister, Robert Ouko. He was also blamed for being behind the Wagalla Massacre.

Bethwel Kiplagat served under Moi’s regime for over a decade, he was Kenya’s ambassador to United Kingdom Ambassador (1981-1983) and Kenya’s envoy to France in (1978-1981) before getting appointed as the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs.