Desperate Family Pleads For Ruto’s Help After Safaricom Defies Court Order in Son’s Murder, Exposing Deeper Data Privacy Crisis

For three years Zipporah Tabu Obura has lived with the brutal reality that her son Kennedy Olilo Obura was found dead in a bathroom at a villa in Mvindeni, Diani, blood on the walls and floor, injuries to his chest and elbow.

What was meant to be a routine trip to serve as best man at a wedding on November 3, 2023, ended on November 5 with a body identified by his father and a family plunged into endless questions.

Now the Obura family, having sold properties and spent millions chasing justice, is turning directly to President William Ruto, with the mother vowing to confront him in Mombasa and name every person and institution she believes is blocking answers.

At the center of their latest agony stands Safaricom, accused of defying a clear court order for three months and allegedly omitting key evidence that could help unravel the mystery of Kennedy’s death.

The Magistrate Court at Mombasa issued an urgent order on March 4, 2026, under case number MCINQ/E009/2024, directing Safaricom to supply phone signal records for numbers around Kennedy’s devices between 11pm on November 4 and 9am on November 5 at the precise Diani location where he died.

The order also demanded M-Pesa transaction records for several numbers linked to persons of interest across critical periods.

The company received the order on March 10.

Three months later the family says compliance has been partial at best, with one transaction involving suspect Carlos Omondi allegedly sent after the death and later reversed by relatives missing from the statements eventually supplied.

The father, James Obura Obonyo, described the omission as intentional. The mother has declared enough is enough, insisting she will publicly name those responsible and face the president when he visits the coast.

This is not an isolated corporate lapse. It sits inside a documented pattern of Safaricom data practices that courts have repeatedly condemned.

In May 2026 Justice Bahati Mwamuye ordered the company to pay Sh900,000 each to eleven petitioners, a total of Sh9.9 million plus costs and interest, after ruling that their rights to privacy, dignity and consumer protection were violated.

Between 2018 and 2019 employees extracted and sold sensitive subscriber information, including M-Pesa histories, betting activity, geolocation and device data, to betting companies including Betika and OdiBets.

The operation potentially touched 11.5 million subscribers.

A manager allegedly built an algorithm to mine the data. Records moved to Google Drives and personal laptops, some still untraced.

The court rejected Safaricom’s attempt to blame rogue individuals, finding instead systemic failures in governance, oversight and security that made the sustained trafficking possible.

The judgment opens the door for millions more affected Kenyans to seek redress.

At the same time Safaricom has faced accusations of being far too willing to release customer data to state investigators without proper court orders. In the case of Moi University student David Mokaya a company officer admitted in court that location and subscriber details were handed to the DCI on the basis of a letter alone, with no judicial warrant sought or verified. Mokaya is now suing for up to Sh200 million.

The High Court has issued and extended orders barring further disclosure of his data without consent or valid authority.

The Law Society of Kenya has petitioned over alleged illegal data sharing during the 2024 protests, while human rights groups have raised concerns that the company has both enabled routine access by security agencies without mandates and, in other sensitive probes, declined to release full records despite court orders.

The Obura family’s experience sits at the intersection of these failures.

A magistrate explicitly ordered phone signals and financial trails that could place people at the villa on the night Kennedy died or expose suspicious post-death transactions.

Instead the family describes months of delay and an allegedly missing payment linked to a named suspect.

In a case already marked by police inconsistencies, concealed CCTV claims and abrupt investigative team changes, the corporate gatekeeping over digital evidence adds another layer of obstruction.

The family has also called for the return of Belgian national Laurence Ghislaine Seneschal, repeatedly named as a key suspect and one of the last people seen with Kennedy alive. They have appealed to the Belgian Embassy and now seek presidential intervention because lower institutions have failed them.

Safaricom’s own privacy statements claim strict adherence to lawful mandates and the Data Protection Act. Court records tell a different story of selective permeability: data flows easily enough when commercial interests or certain state requests are involved, yet becomes elusive or incomplete when a grieving family holds a court order in a murder inquest.

The human cost is measured in millions exposed to targeted betting harassment after their profiles were leaked, and in families like the Oburas who have exhausted every legal avenue only to find a powerful telecom standing between them and potential answers about who killed their son.

The inquest before Senior Resident Magistrate David Odhiambo continues, adjourned into September.

The court order carried a penal notice warning that disobedience carries consequences.

Three months after receipt the family is still waiting and has turned to the highest office in the land. President Ruto, the Obura family is waiting in Mombasa. Safaricom, the pattern of treating Kenyan data as both a profit center and a selective shield has been laid bare in successive courtrooms.

The only question left is whether accountability will finally reach a company whose systems have repeatedly failed the very citizens whose trust and money built its empire.