Lead image for 'Our marriage had challenges': KCB executive Rosemary Koech’s husband says as court halts funeral.
A Milimani court has temporarily stopped the burial of a former KCB Bank executive following a dispute between her husband and family over funeral arrangements.
The court issued orders barring the burial of Rosemary Chemutai (also referred to as Rosemary Koech) and directed Lee Funeral Home not to release her body pending the hearing of an application filed by her husband, Kevin Migwe Kimwatu.
Rosemary, who served as head of data protection in KCB's risk division, died on August 21 at the age of 40.
In the orders issued on Friday, the court restrained her parents, Paul and Beatrice Koech, her sister Judy Koech-Oyamo, and KCB Bank from proceeding with burial arrangements without the involvement of her husband.
"An interim temporary injunction hereby issued restraining the Defendants/Respondents ... from interring and or inhuming the remains of the late Rosemary Chemutai without the consent and/or involvement of the Applicant pending the inter-partes hearing of this application," the court ruled.
The case will be mentioned on August 31 for further directions.
The legal battle emerged just a day before Chemutai's scheduled burial. A funeral programme prepared by her family indicated that she was to be laid to rest on August 29 at her parents' home in Chepseon, Kericho County. However, Kimwatu moved to court claiming he had been excluded from decisions surrounding his wife's funeral and burial.
In court papers, he said he was legally married to Chemutai. The couple wed on August 24, 2013 at St Austin's Catholic Church in Nairobi and had four children.