{"id":119666,"date":"2025-08-13T06:04:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/13\/kenya-court-says-british-tycoons-body-too-decomposed-to-determine-cause-of-death\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T06:04:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:04:02","slug":"kenya-court-says-british-tycoons-body-too-decomposed-to-determine-cause-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/kenya-court-says-british-tycoons-body-too-decomposed-to-determine-cause-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya court says British tycoon\u2019s body too decomposed to determine cause of death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Kenyan magistrate says the cause of death of British tycoon Harry Roy Veevers, whose exhumed body has been in a morgue for 11 years, cannot be determined.<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Odhiambo ordered the inquest to be closed, saying that \u201cdue to the level of [the body\u2019s] decomposition at the time of exhumation \u2013 months after his burial\u201d it was too hard to say what led to his death and \u201cnobody can be called to answer any charge\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Veevers died on Valentine\u2019s Day 2013 in the coastal city of Mombasa. He was buried in accordance with Islamic rites and without a post-mortem.<\/p>\n

It led to a lengthy legal battle, with his two sons from a previous marriage calling for an investigation into how their father had died.<\/p>\n

The sons, Richard and Philip Veevers, who were living in the UK, accused their father\u2019s second wife, Azra Parveen Din, and her daughters, Helen and Alexandra, of being involved in his death, allegedly so that they could inherit his multi-million dollar estate. They have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Mr Odhiambo ruled that because of the state of the the body and \u201cthe conflicting reports by the pathologists, government chemist and other experts\u201d no charges could be made.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigations relating to the death of the deceased are hereby considered closed unless and until new information comes to light,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The magistrate said that Mr Veever\u2019s body should be released from the morgue in Mombasa upon payment of the fee that had accumulated for the last 11 years.<\/p>\n

But it is unclear who the body will be handed over to as Mr Odhiambo said he could not make that decision and instructed both families to seek direction from a different court.<\/p>\n

At the time of Mr Veever\u2019s death in 2013, his second wife, who was living with him in Mombasa, said that her husband had died of natural causes.<\/p>\n

But his Islamic burial, done quickly after his death, raised suspicions from his sons, who said their father was not Muslim and had been buried under a false name. They also alleged that their father may have been poisoned.<\/p>\n

In January last year, a magistrates\u2019 court ruled that his death was not suspicious.<\/p>\n

However, his sons successfully challenged that ruling and petitioned the High Court to reopen the inquest and allow them to submit new evidence.<\/p>\n

The High Court referred the case back to a magistrates\u2019 court, citing irregular procedures leading to the initial ruling.<\/p>\n

Tests conducted after the exhumation revealed traces of a pesticide, although pathologists differed on whether this could have been the cause of his death.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ruling mentioned the post-mortem findings that found traces of a poisonous substance on both the remains and soil where his body was exhumed.<\/p>\n

But it also cited the \u201cconflicting findings by pathologists, government chemist and other experts\u201d, as a reason why the cause of death \u201cremains unknown\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Kenyan magistrate says the cause of death of British tycoon Harry Roy Veevers, whose exhumed body has been in a morgue for 11 years, cannot be determined. David Odhiambo ordered the inquest to be closed, saying that \u201cdue to the level of [the body\u2019s] decomposition at the time of exhumation \u2013 months after his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}