Chief Justice Martha Koome has honoured the wishes of the late Willie Kimani's widow Hannah Wanjiku, days after she made an appeal to her and President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Wanjiku had feared that the late Kimani's case would start afresh following Lessit's appointment to the Court of Appeal.
On Thursday, July 1, however, Koome sent formal orders to judge Jessie Lessit, allowing her to conclude all her part-heard matters and pending judgments.
Kimani's widow had decried that there have been a delay in the case especially after Lessit was nominated by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to join the Court of Appeal in July 2019.
"What worries me the most is that Justice Lessit was promoted, so she went to Mombasa. I don't know if we get a new judge if the case will start all over again and I'm afraid that the case will just end like that," Wanjiku stated during an interview on Citizen TV.
“I would really request for Justice Lessit to finish the job…I would ask President Uhuru Kenyatta, would you want him to get justice? Even Chief Justice Martha Koome, I believe she’s a mother, if it was her son or daughter, would they ensure that they get justice?” she had posed.
Kimani, a human rights lawyer, his client Joseph Mwenda and a taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were kidnapped and found murdered seven days later in June 2016.
“Kimani woke up as usual at 5 am, prepared to go to work. On that day he was going to Mavoko Law Courts with a client. He was to come early but he never came back," Wanjiku narrated.
The family narrated that the late lawyer had been the breadwinner in the family, constantly checking up on his parents.
"I would rather that they took my life and not Kimani's," his father stated.
Previously, in May 2021, Winfred Waithera King'ori, the mother of the late Ivy Wangechi expressed frustrations over the dragging of her daughter's murder case.
She decried that the family had undergone emotional and financial frustration after the defense lawyer failed to show up in court on a number of occasions.
"Every time we come here, somebody comfortably says that the lawyer is not available and my question is, was it not known from as early as yesterday that the lawyer was not available," she posed.
