A KENYAN court has brought an end to an 11-year legal battle over the mysterious death of British businessman Harry Roy Veevers, ruling that his cause of death cannot be determined due to the severe decomposition of his remains.
Magistrate David Odhiambo delivered the ruling on Tuesday, stating that the condition of Mr Veevers’ body exhumed months after his February 14, 2013 burial made it impossible to establish how he died. The body had been stored in a Mombasa morgue ever since.
“Due to the level of decomposition at the time of exhumation and the conflicting reports by the pathologists, government chemist and other experts, nobody can be called to answer any charge,” Mr Odhiambo said, ordering the inquest closed unless new evidence emerges.
The case has drawn attention in both Kenya and the UK, partly because of the bitter feud between Mr Veevers’ two sons, Richard and Philip, from his first marriage, and his second wife, Azra Parveen Din, along with her daughters, Helen and Alexandra.
The sons alleged that their father had been poisoned so the second family could inherit his multimillion-dollar estate allegations the accused have consistently denied.
Veevers, who lived in the coastal city of Mombasa, died suddenly on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
His second wife said he died of natural causes and arranged an Islamic burial, reportedly under a different name. His sons claimed the burial was suspicious, noting their father was not Muslim.
The dispute escalated into years of courtroom proceedings. An earlier magistrates’ court had ruled in 2023 that the death was not suspicious, but the sons challenged the decision in the High Court, which ordered the inquest reopened to review fresh evidence.
Tests after the exhumation found traces of a pesticide on both the remains and the surrounding soil, but experts could not agree on whether it was enough to cause death.
The magistrate noted that these contradictory conclusions left the cause of death officially “unknown.”
Mr Odhiambo also ordered the release of the body from the morgue but did not decide who should take custody of it, instructing both families to seek that determination from another court.
He further noted that accumulated storage fees must be settled before release.
For now, the ruling closes one of Kenya’s longest-running inquests, leaving the mystery of Harry Veevers’ death unresolved.