Rawson Macharia

Rawson Mbugua Macharia was the key prosecution witness at the trial of the Kapenguria Six, Kenyan nationalists amongst whom Jomo Kenyatta was prominent. The Six were arrested in 1952, and tried in 1952-53 for the offence of managing Mau Mau, then a proscribed society.

Macharia testified that in March 1950, he had taken one of the Mau Mau oaths at Kenyatta's hands. He further claimed that the oathing involved stripping naked and drinking human blood. [See p. 1 of "The Roots of the Fig Tree"] Macharia's submissions were the only evidence of a direct link between Kenyatta and Mau Mau produced before the court. Mau Mau was proscribed in August 1950, so, even had the claims been true, it is unclear that they proved Kenyatta's membership, let alone management, of a proscribed organisation.

In 1958, Macharia swore an affidavit to the effect that he and six others had perjured themselves at the trial. The prosecution witnesses, he claimed, had been coached, and some of them were rewarded with plots of land at the Coast. He had himself been offered a university course in public administration at Exeter University College, protection for his family, and a government job on his return from the UK [ See Lonsdale 2000: 235] The affidavit was backed by a letter, apparently from the Attorney-General at the time of the trial, detailing the promised benefits (See the Time report).

The affidavit led to a trial at which it was conceded by the government that the witnesses had been coached (to better enable them to stand up to hostile cross-examination), that they had been paid (as compensation for loss of livelihood), and that Macharia had both lied at the trial and received the claimed benefits. [See Lonsdale 2000: 235-6]

Macharia was later to write a book: "The Truth about about the Trial of Jomo Kenyatta".

Notes

Bibliography

*Anonymous (Mar 16, 1959) [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936990,00.html The Roots of the Fig Tree ] , "Time" Magazine.
*John Lonsdale (2000) "Kenyatta's Trials: Making and Breaking an African Nationalist", in "The Moral World of the Law", Peter Coss (ed), Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521640598
*Rawson Macharia (1991), "The Truth about the Trial of Jomo Kenyatta", Nairobi: Longman. ISBN 9966498230