Meru Senator Mithika Linturi’s divorce seem to be going from bad to worse as the days go by.
By the look of things, it seems like the man from Igembe will have no where to run to or hide once this entire Divorce Procedure is over and done with as his enstranged wife keeps throwing bombshell after bombeshell at him.
Mithika Linturi’s Enstranged Wife Marianne Kitany has presnted new set of demands to the Court and now wants the legislator investigated for bigamy, saying he duped her into believing he had divorced.
Kitany describes her marriage to Linturi as being tumultuous and always on the verge of a break-up. During their union, she says they went through the normal problems of most marriages, mostly caused by Linturi.
Kitany says they regularly fought over children and other family matters especially because Linturi wanted more children, “while I was of the opinion that the children we had were enough”.
“The defendant had incidences of extra-marital affairs. He was prone to those relationships and therefore, we fought severally over his habits which included getting phone calls and messages from different women,” she further claimed.
In a damming affidavit, Kitany claims she met Linturi in 2013 while working at Deputy President William Ruto’s office as the Chief of Staff and him as Member of Parliament for Igembe South.
She says they got closer in February 2014, and started dating during which period he would bring her flowers and visit her frequently at which time he claimed he was single and unmarried.
Through her lawyer Danstan Omari, Kitany claims at the time, being the Deputy President’s Chief of Staff and having connection to Ruto, Linturi rode on the wave of being her spouse to rise politically and position himself as a senator in 2017 from his then position as MP in 2013 where he had been for two terms.
She says her relationship with Linturi was also strained by his motion in Parliament in 2014 to have then Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru impeached as there was pressure at the office since they were regarding her as a traitor.
While she was going through the divorce proceedings with her ex-husband, Linturi had also assured her he was also working on his divorce petition.
“After cohabiting for little under two years, the defendant decided to actualise and/or formalise our living together as husband and wife both for my benefit and for the children to formally acknowledge one another as siblings,” she said in court documents.
She says she asked him for the second time “about his divorce proceedings if he indeed was intent upon marrying me, to which he did categorically confirm that he was no longer a married man.” Linturi claims Kitany was not his wife but a visitor who he hosted on compassionate grounds.
According to Kitany, however, Linturi came to her parents’ home in April 2016 to actualise the marriage where he confirmed to the elders that he was divorced and available and had all the intentions of marrying her.
“The elders accepted his request for my hand in marriage and to signify the sealing of the union, he was given mursik which is a sign of acceptance of a marriage as per my people’s customs. His delegation gave my father figure a bunch of miraa as per Meru customary practice,” she said in the affidavit.
Kitany further reveals Linturi was in financial crisis, which directly affected their situation at home and on various instances she saved him from debt collectors and potential bankruptcy.
She says the Runda home was constructed through a loan of Sh50 million that her brother helped Linturi secure. “Unbeknown to me, the defendant proceeded to register the plot at Runda in his name, excluding both me and or my brother, whose company properties he used to acquire the said plot in Runda,” she said.
She wants the court to order the Director of Criminal Investigations to investigate the alleged falsification, forgery and or faking of court documents and stamps by Linturi.
She further wants the Attorney General and Registrar of Marriages to produce records of all marriages contracted by Linturi.