Pathologist Who Fled Kenya After Exposing Cover-Up in Julie Ward Murder Case

By Levin Opiyo

When Dr. Adel Youssef Shaker left his country Egypt in the 80s to work as a pathologist at Nairobi City Motuary, he didn’t know the danger he was exposing himself to. It didn’t take long before he fled the country after rogue senior state officials coerced him into approving a falsified post-mortem report following the suspicious death of Julie Ward in 1988.

In his findings, after examining Julie Ward’s charred remains, he indicated that Julie was most likely killed. But the government wanted him to change the report and say that the British tourist was attacked by wild animals.

When Youssef left his country Egypt to take up a job in Nairobi as Kenya Police Pathologist, he hoped for a better life. After all, the amount of money he had been earning in Egypt was much lower compared to what he was set to earn in Kenya.

In Nairobi, if not at City Mortuary, he could be found in the Coptic Church on Ngong, where he worshipped and was also a leader. Apart from his expertise in medicine and forensic pathology, he had also studied law since the two areas are interconnected in establishing facts to ensure an accurate administration of justice especially in high stake cases where death or injury is involved.

At City Mortuary, where he was based, his strong Christian faith and the professional code of conduct guided him in carrying out his work with great honesty. Perhaps what he didn’t realize in those early days was that he had just immersed himself into a system that was replete with state manipulation and in which honesty was secondary. Julie Ward’s case eventually opened his eyes to this fact.

Knowing how sensitive the matter was and how senior government officials were determined to cover the cause of Julie Ward’s death, Youssef suggested to Julie’s father whether they could hold a meeting away from his office at City Mortuary. He suggested the Egyptian Orthodox Church on Ngong Rd as the best place.

This meeting took place on the same day in the church’s compound on Ngong Road and was attended by Ward , his business associate Frank Ribeiro, and John Ferguson, the Second Secretary at the British High Commission. There was also an MI5 intelligence officer. Even though Mr Ward was yet to see the remains of his daughter, Dr Youssef brought to the meeting Julie’s real jaw and demonstrated to him that the clean cut in it was a sign that it had been cut by a sharp object. Mr Ward and his associates were all satisfied with Youssef’s findings.

As the meeting came to a close, Dr Youssef apologised for forgetting to bring the post-mortem report. However, he assured all those present that he had signed it in Arabic and nobody could interfere with it, adding that even if they falsified it, he had it off head. But he was wrong.

On September 22, 1988, the then Chief government Pathologist Jason Kaviti, who was Dr Youssef’s boss left his office at Kenyatta National Hospital and walked to Dr Youssef’s office at City Mortuary where he demanded to see Julie Ward’s post mortem report. As Dr Youssef later recalled, “He took the report ..I heard him saying ‘no, no, no’ and saw him underline through some words. I wasn’t happy about this, but Dr Kaviti was my boss.”

In falsifying Youssef’s report Dr Kaviti crossed “clean cut” relating to the jaw and replaced it with “cracked”, and clean cut in relation to the lower leg had been crossed and replaced with “torn”. His aim was to make it appear she was killed by wild animals. The document was then forwarded to Kenya Police headquarters for collection.

When Ferguson went to collect the report on behalf of Ward at Kenya Police Headquarters on September 23 , he was shocked to see significant alteration and the contents different from what Youssef had told them.

Incensed by the alteration, Ward, Ferguson and John Lee the owner of Lee Funeral Home, decided to confront Youssef at City Mortuary to demand an explanation on why the report was visibly altered and was totally different from what he had told them .

This they did at 1515 hours. At first, Youssef was very uncomfortable but immediately came clean and admitted his report had been altered by his boss, the Chief Pathologist, Dr Kaviti. To absolve himself from any blame, Youssef suggested that he was ready to take them to Kaviti’s office at the Kenyatta National Hospital so that they could confront him on the matter.

When they confronted Kaviti at KNH, he very dismissive, telling them that Dr Youssef worked under him, and therefore he had the authority to alter any of his reports , and also pointed out that as an Egyptian his English was not good .

Angered with this falsification of evidence, Ward warned Kaviti to his face that he would seek another independent post mortem in the UK. , to which Kavitu replied with some bravura that that was perfectly in order. Ward consequently took the remains to the UK where Professor G.A Gresham of the University of Cambridge upheld Youssef’s original findings that there was definite evidence of the jaw and the leg having been cut with a heavy instrument.

From this moment, pressure began piling on Youssef to retract his original findings and announce publicly that he agreed with Kaviti’s findings that Julie was most likely killed by wild animals. Because of his strong Christian faith and code of conduct, Youssef decided to stand by his original findings.

Angered by his refusal to cooperate, Youssef was arrested on trumped-up charges of robbing a drunk taxi driver and briefly locked up at Kamiti. He was also suspended from work, and his passport was confiscated.

A couple of days after being released on bond, Youssef was summoned to police headquarters by Commissioner of Police Philip Kilonzo who ordered him to issue a new statement stating that “after reconsidering all the evidence he now agreed with Kavitu ‘s theory that Julie Ward was killed by animals. Youssef played for time by asking Kilonzo to give him two weeks to consider his position.

The following day he was summoned to Sheria House where Attorney General Mathew Muli , who was rude and abrasive, spent almost 15 minutes berating him before ordering him to make a new statement otherwise he would face the consequences.

Youssef was so frightened that he decided to remain silent as Muli rained insults on him. He was told that “this was the fate of one girl balanced by the fate of one nation” and therefore, anything that could damage Kenya’s standing as a tourist destination could not be allowed. Three days later, he was picked up by the CID and taken to the CID headquarters, where he was given a typed statement in his name but drafted by the Attorney General’s office.

He was then driven to the Panafric Hotel , where he was told to rewrite the entire statement in his own handwriting and sign it. He was threatened that unless he did so, he would go to prison and that his wife and children would suffer. For his own safety and that of his family, Youssef eventually complied by copying and signing the statement to the effect that Julie Ward had been killed by wild animals.

Having complied, Dr. Youssef thought he would be accepted back as a police pathologist , but the Kenyan government didn’t want anything to do with him because he was too upright for a dishonest system. Realizing that he had no future in Kenya and that he life was at an even greater risk, he sold all his belongings and quietly left Kenya with his wife for his country Egypt. He didn’t even bother to claim KES 72000 , that the government still owed him for his job as Kenya Police pathologist.

He lived in poverty in his hometown of Minya South of Cairo, sharing a flat with his in-laws. But even there, he still felt unsafe, fearing that Kenyan state agents could track him down. He later relocated abroad and currently works as a senior forensic pathologist in the State of Alabama and also serves as an expert witness in cases related to criminal law, personal injury, and civil rights. He has provided his expert opinions in the Superior Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia and the Court of Criminal Appeals in Alabama.

The writer is a London-based Kenyan journalist and researcher