The High Court today ordered a DNA test to prove the paternity of Fidel Odinga twins at the centre of a property inheritance suit pitting the Raila Odinga family and their daughter-in-law.
Justice Aggrey Muchelule directed the test be done to establish whether the two minors alleged to have been sired by ODM leader Raila Odinga’s late son, Fidel, were indeed his. The lawyers from both sides will agree on where the DNA will be conducted.
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Lwam Getachew Bekelle, the Fidel’s widow, has disowned the twins arguing her son is the only heir to the deceased’s estate. A notice of motion in the case was filed at the Milimani Law Courts Family Division for grant of representative for the estate of Fidel Odinga.
The court declined to bar the media from covering the case, saying once the matter is filed in open court, journalists have right to access but directed that the children’s names should not be mentioned to protect them.
The former prime minister had been lobbying the media not to cover the proceedings and managed to block the story from running in The Standard and Daily Nation.
In the court papers, Ida, Raila’s wife, and his daughter, Winnie, are opposing Lwam from becoming the administrator of Fidel’s estate. Ida and Winnie said Fidel had twins with a different woman – a girl and a boy – who are they argue are legally his dependents.
“The petitioner has deliberately failed to include and provide or otherwise show the intention of providing for the said minors hence a red flag on her intentions,” Ida said.
But according to Bekelle, the objection by Ida and Winnie has been overtaken by events since it was filed outside stipulated timelines by law of succession. The grant of letters of administration of the estate was issued on January 9, 2019.
The Twin Problem
Fidel was found dead after a night out with friends in January 2015. He died aged 41.
Bekelle, through her lawyers, termed her mother-in-law’s assertions as a concoction of facts given that the said twins were born six months after Fidel’s death.
Lwam on Wednesday said she does not have a problem accepting the minors as beneficiaries of her late husband’s estate if it is proved they are his children. The case will be mentioned on November 13.
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