A BRIT businessman who faced time behind bars for the fatal shooting of a Kenyan woman has revealed a private detective was able to prove his innocence.
Richard Alden had rushed injured Grace Wangechi Kinyanjui to hospital after she was shot at his luxury home in Nairobi in June last year.
Six days later, the father-of-three had been charged with her murder and was facing time behind one of the most notorious jails in Africa.
But thanks to the work of a former forensic firearms expert with the Metropolitan Police Geoffrey Arnold, prosecutors dropped the case in October.
The detective managed to figure out Grace Kinyanjui had been posing with the gun in the mirror when the firearm went off, with the bullet rebounding off the floor and fatally hitting her.
Mr Alden, 54, told The Sunday Times: “Initially it was a public witch-hunt.
“I was going to be the sacrificial lamb. Somebody’s died; there’s been a gunshot and the person who has supposedly perpetrated it is a foreigner and not only that, he is supposedly a very wealthy foreigner.”
Arnold’s report found that in fact, Grace’s death had been a tragic accident, and that she had been posing in front of the mirror and pulled back the trigger, causing the gun to go off.
While the ammunition was normally kept separate, a bullet had been left in the pistol due to night time intruders.
Mr Alden said: “There is an element of culpability in that — and I am not hiding from it. I am going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. There is a tragic story behind this.”
While the businessman has now been able to return to the UK, he said he still loved Kenya, and planned to return to the country for holidays.
When Mr Alden faced court, his lawyers had insisted the woman had been taking selfies when the gun went off, with lawyer Evans Monari saying: “The girl shot herself by accident.”
He was also supported by the mother of tragic Grace, Anastasia, who had continually maintained his innocence.
She had even filed an affadavit to state to police that her family believed her daughter’s death was an accident.
-thesun.co.uk
