the suspect in the murder of Rebecca Cheptegei died in hospital – Libération

The murderer of Rebecca Cheptegei died from burns suffered when he doused the Ugandan marathon runner with gasoline and set her on fire, the hospital in western Kenya where he was being treated announced Tuesday, September 10. Presented by the Kenyan police as the athlete’s companion, Dickson Ndiema Marangach suffered 41% burns, according to the hospital, during this fatal attack which became an emblematic case of violence against women.

“He developed respiratory failure following severe respiratory tract burns and sepsis which led to his death,” Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret town said in a statement on Tuesday. He was pronounced dead Monday evening, the hospital said. “We consider that justice has been done,” commented the athlete’s father, Joseph Cheptegei. “We are now only interested in burying our daughter,” he added, expressing his exhaustion in the face of this ordeal.

On September 1, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, 32, doused Rebecca Cheptegei with gasoline and set her on fire as she returned from church with her two children at her home in Endebess, western Kenya. More than 80% burned and hospitalized, the 33-year-old athlete died last Thursday. She will be buried on Saturday in her family’s village in eastern Uganda. According to her relatives, the attack originated from a dispute over the land she had bought to build her house.

Global outrage

This murder, a few weeks after his participation in the marathon of the Paris Olympic Games (44th), aroused worldwide emotion and indignation. The spokesperson for the UN Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, notably “firmly” condemned this “violent murder”, “which illustrates a broader problem too often ignored”, that of violence against women. The city of Paris announced that it would name a sports site after him.

Her death joins those of numerous victims of gender-based violence in Kenya, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has recorded 725 women killed in gender-related killings in 2022.

Kenyan athletics has been bereaved three times in three years by this type of murder. In October 2021, the promising athlete Agnes Tirop (25 years old), double world bronze medalist in the 10,000 m (2017, 2019) and 4th in the Tokyo Olympics in the 5,000 m, was found stabbed to death at her home in Iten, famous training location for long-distance running in the Rift Valley. Her husband Emmanuel Ibrahim Rotich is being prosecuted for murder. He denies the accusations. His trial is ongoing. In April 2022, another Bahraini athlete of Kenyan origin, Damaris Mutua, was found dead in Iten. Her companion, on the run, is suspected of having killed her.