Tech-savvy witness testifies in court through Skype

Technology arrived in the High Court in Narok when a judge heard a prosecution witness through Skype video from Beijing in a case in which a Chinese national is charged with murdering a woman at the Masai Mara.

In his evidence via Skype, the Chinese tourist Yi Dong told Justice Justus Bwonwonga how his wife was attacked by Li Chanquing after an altercation that entailed use of abusing language. Yi Dong, whose wife succumbed to stab wounds at a lodge in Maasai Mara, on Tuesday presented his witness before Narok High Court.

There has been a long delay in the case as the prosecution looked for an interpreter and set up logistics to enable the use of internet.

During the proceedings, the first through Skype in Narok, the judge and the prosecutor cross examined the witness through the interpreter.

“On August 8, 2016, my wife, friends and I had traveled to Kenya as tourists and were headed to Keekorok Lodge in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve where we had been booked by our organizers. When we were taking buffet, Li Chanquing (the accused) started insulting my wife with abusive language. I intervened and the accused left,” recalled Mr. Dong.

He told the court that afterwards, while sitting with his wife at the dining table, the accused came again started insulting his wife with his hands at the back.

“It’s at this time that Mr Chanquing and my deceased wife started fighting. My wife shouted at me that the accused was holding a knife behind him. He stabbed my wife at the stomach several times, before turning back to me and stabbed me at the stomach and on my right hand. The visitors and other people present intervened and separated us,” he added.

Mr. Chanquing, 45, is charged with the murder of Mrs Jinli Liu, 45, on August 8, 2016 at Keekorok Lodge in the Maasai Mara National Game Reserve.

He faces another charge of inflicting grievous harm to her husband Yi Dong, 47 years old and critically wounding him on the material day.

It was alleged that the accused, a tour guide at Maasai Mara Game Reserve, stabbed a Chinese couple in a scuffle over a dining table. The tour guide stabbed both the man and his wife with a knife, killing the woman. The husband survived the ordeal with injuries.

The tour guide and the couple were said to have argued over the occupancy of a dinner table. The assailant was said to have demanded that they leave their table, insisting that he usually sat at that table.

The hearing will continue this week.