A Kenyan magistrate this week expressed the hope that a British property tycoon would finally “find rest in eternal peace”, after his body had spent 11 years in a mortuary.
But this week’s conclusion to the decade-long inquest into Harry Roy Veevers’ death in 2013 still leaves many questions unanswered.
It was a case that involved accusations of murder by poisoning, rancorous legal proceedings, the exhumation of a body after almost a year and ultimately divided four siblings – two sons from his first marriage and two daughters from the second.
In one hearing, the sisters, Hellen and Alexandra, were reprimanded by the magistrate for shouting out that a witness was lying and threatened with spending time in a cell, reports said.
In another, Hellen Veevers emerged from the courthouse with a message she had written on her vest-top: “My daddy was not murdered.”
Despite the lengthy inquest into the death of the wealthy 64-year-old, the magistrate, David Odhiambo, found that the cause of death could not be determined “due to the level of [the body’s] decomposition” after spending so long underground. He ordered that the corpse be released to the family for reburial at a place of their choice.
An unsatisfactory ending that could lead to further disputes. Lawyers for both sides told the BBC they were considering their next steps.
“When you have a family split down the middle, how does the court say the remains should be released to the family, when both sides have been fighting since 2013?” said Francis Kinyua Kamundi, representing Mr Veevers’ sons, Richard and Philip.
From the start of his detailed 95-page ruling, the magistrate acknowledged the deeply entrenched feud between the family members.
“Although the death of a loved one often brings survivors closer through the inevitable grieving,” he wrote, “The emotions associated with death can also tear survivors apart”.
This was definitely a case of the latter.
“What happened soon after his burial tore the family apart and marked the beginning of a legal drama,” according to Mr Odhiambo.
On one side of the case were the sons and on the other were Mr Veevers’ second wife, Azra Parvin Din, along with their daughters.
The children were living in the UK, while their father and Ms Parvin Din, who had been together for more than 30 years, were living on the Kenyan coast.
The family feud started after his death on Valentine’s Day 2013, at his home in Mombasa where he had long settled and had an extensive property portfolio. The children then travelled to Kenya.
The drama began the moment they arrived.
It was Saturday 16 February, a day before the burial.
According to Richard Veevers’ court testimony, Ms Parvin Din was agitated when questioned about the deceased. His brother Philip also told the court that she had initially refused his request to view his father’s body.
Ms Parvin Din said he had died of a heart attack.
When they finally saw their father the following day, Richard said he “noticed redness in the face and the lips were purple and pink”, according to the magistrate’s summary.
Tensions seemed to escalate over Ms Parvin Din and her daughters’ reactions to the photos that Philip had taken of the body – including demands that he should delete them, the brothers said.
In the magistrate’s ruling, he said Alexandra Veevers had testified that “she did not see any marks on her father’s body… and that she only saw the face since the body was wrapped in a cloth… She stated that they asked for the videos and pictures but Richard and Philip refused to give them out and she didn’t understand why they did not want to share the photos”.
Mr Veevers was buried shortly afterwards without a post-mortem or police involvement.
It was Ms Parvin Din’s “decision that the deceased should be buried without post-mortem and did not consult anyone,” the court ruling said. Nor did she inform the police about the death, stating that she was not aware that she had to report it.
The Islamic burial, done quickly according to tradition, further raised suspicions from his sons, who said their father was not Muslim and had been buried under a false name.
