A Government Chemist report that will be used in the inquest into the death of a woman who was found hanging in her house has cleared her husband’s name.
The husband Nikesh Harji was the main suspect in the death of his late wife Vanita Nikesh who was found hanging on a piece of cloth in their house.
Nikesh was arrested and later released from custody after police failed to get enough evidence to charge him with murder and the matter was referred to an inquest.
However, in a report dated August 22 from the government chemist, it states that Nikesh DNA was not found on the cloth samples taken for analysis.
Government Analysit Henry Sang says the items taken for analysis included a pink dress, a green trouser, a piece of blue cloth with cream flowers and another light green cloth.
Nikesh DNA samples which were buccual swabs were also taken for analysis against the deceased clothes.
Sang says he used the Fragment Analysis by Capillary Electrophoresis to conduct the analysis.
In his findings, there were no blood stains detected on all the clothes that were taken to him for analysis so he could not generate DNA profiles from them.
In the last hearing, government pathologist Johansen Oduor had disagreed with his collague on the decease cause of death.
Oduor appeared before an inquest into the death of Vanitah and told court he could not establish if she hanged herself from the report prepared by his colleague Dr. Peter Ndegwa.
Oduor was giving his opinion on the post-mortem report filed by Ndegwa which had concluded that Vanita committed suicide by hanging.
Vanitah’s body was discovered hanging by neighbours on April 3 2022 at her house and her husband Nikesh Harji was arrested for her murder.
In cross-examination by Nikesh’s lawyer Martina Swiga put Oduor to task on how he came to the said conclusions even though he was not the one who performed the autopsy.
Swiga asked Oduor what standards he was referring to that Ndegwa did not use in the autopsy.
Oduor said that it is a standard practice that is unwritten because there is no policy but they mostly go back to the forensic books for guidance.
He also said they have worked together with Ndegwa in many autopsies and have followed the same standard but he does not know why his colleague chose to omit some information.
The case will resume hearing on September 14.
