My new hope in justice battle
By Julie Ward’s dad
THE dad of wildlife photographer Julie Ward, raped and murdered in a Kenyan game reserve 32 years ago, says the death of the prime suspect has sparked a deluge of fresh evidence.
John Ward, who has spent £2million and made more than 200 trips to the Maasai Mara to bring his daughter’s killer to justice, said last night: “I want people to know the truth.”
He believes Julie, 28 – whose body was cut up and set on fire – was killed by Jonathan Moi, son of then Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi.
But the retired businessman says his search has repeatedly hit a brick wall, and claims the British authorities and even MI6 had helped Kenyan officials to cover up the murder.
Suspect Moi died in April 2019. But it was only after the death of his father, President Moi, in February that witnesses felt safe to come forward.
John, who made his fortune in hotels, said one man was “physically trembling” when he gave evidence.
And he says his fight for justice is driven by the memory of discovering his daughter’s dismembered, charred body when he flew out to look for clues to her 1988 disappearance.
Scotland Yard have now told him they are shelving their inquiry – and John, 87, says he faces a race against time to solve the case before he dies.
He said: “We continue to get blocked. But there is always the memory of that day I found her.
Once Moi died people were more willing to speak. One was physically trembling
JOHN WARD ON BATTLE TO UNMASK DAUGHTER’S KILLER
EVIDENCE
“I owe it to Julie to get justice. We know who killed her. It’s confirming it with more evidence so it’s all clearer.”
A stream of information about Jonathan Moi over the years forced Kenyan police to take a statement from him. He told them he was nowhere near the scene at the time.
John, who flew to Nairobi in September to chase a potential new lead, said: “We now have information that he was. Once Moi died, people were more willing to speak.
“I met one guy who was able to tell us Moi i had been in the park, had been in that at immediate area where the body was found, and he had proof.
“When hen I met him he was physically trembling.”
Julie e had set off on a sixmonth h adventure after leaving g her 15-hour-day job with a publishing company any in Bury St Edmunds, nds, Suffolk.
Fearing ring life “was passing ng her by”, she decided ed to travel to Africa to photograph tograph animals, hoping to capture pture the annual migration of wildebeest debeest in the Maasai Mara.
Then n with just one month of her trip still to go, John ohn was told Julie had gone one missing. ng.
Within hin hours he had boarded a flight to Kenya to start his own search.
He said: “It’s a funny feeling, I actually knew something was wrong. I had an overwhelming feeling I had to do something, so I flew out that day. “I’d never been to Africa, never been to the bush. I realised how wild and rough it was, all I could think was
that she was down there by herself.” John paid for five aircraft to conduct a grid search of the area where Julie was last seen and spotted her Suzuki in a gully.
Her body was eventually eve found 10 miles away. It was John Joh who found his daughter’s jaw and lower lo left leg, both burned, deep in bushes. bush
He said: “There wa was her body, what was left of it. It was not a nice scene. Her leg had been cut and then burned, which indicated foul play.
“The rangers were going to leave the body, but I insisted insisted.” A pathologist originally said Julie Ju had been murdered, before the report was doctored to say she h had been attacked by animals. Then John was told she had been struck by lightning.
It took more than 12 months for the Kenyan police to classify it as murder.
And more than three decades of investigation have left John in no doubt Moi was to blame.
He claims Moi and his drunken pals came across Julie when she stopped to photograph the wildlife near the Serena Lodge.
He says Moi then raped her as his cronies stopped farm manager Ibrahim Choge stepping in to stop him. Moi’s men were then ordered to dispose of her body, John claims. Mr Choge – who was married to President Moi’s daughter Doris – quit working for the family.
He died in a road accident 10 years later. John claims that came after Mr Choge threatened to expose Moi.
Mr Choge’s father Simeon, a former assistant minister, also says his son’s death was orchestrated and blamed police for allegedly covering it up.
CHARGED
John said: “A lot of information has been gathered over the years. For a long time, anything I gathered I reported to Scotland Yard, expecting them to act on it, but they never did.”
In 1992 two park rangers were
People tried to sweep it under the carpet. That’s when you get bloody-minded JOHN WARD JULIE’S DAD ON HOW HIS PROBE WAS BLOCKED
charged but cleared in court. In 1998 Simon Ole Makallah, chief park ranger at the time, was arrested. He was cleared the following year. John believes all three were scapegoats.
In his tireless search, John dug out a latrine near the scene in case any of Julie’s possessions – or the weapons used to kill her – had been discarded there.
He even stored DNA evidence in his own freezer, and tracked down the vehicle Julie had been using when she died, which had been driven by her killer.
Local police had it scrapped before he could ship it back to the UK. During an
inquest in 2004 it was claimed there had been a cover-up in Kenya to protect her killers. Adel Shaker, a Kenyan government pathologist, told the hearing his boss had doctored his first report and he was pressured into signing other false reports.
The coroner also heard how MI6 had been in contact with Kenyan police within days of the murder.
An unnamed agent admitted he could not explain the involvement of the Secret Intelligence Service, but denied it was part of a cover-up. A separate report by Jon Stoddart, later chief constable of Durham, accused Kenyan police of being “brazen, deceitful and dishonest”.
And in 2008 John used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a report compiled in 2004 for Lincolnshire Police.
It was highly critical of the Foreign Office, the British High Commission and Scotland Yard.
It said of the FCO and the British High Commission: “There is clear evidence of inconsistency and contradictions, falsehoods and downright lies, and it is this that has, not surprisingly, led to John Ward believing there was an active conspiracy to prevent him identifying his daughter’s killers.”
A Government spokesman told the Sunday Mirror: “We reaffirm our sympathy for Julie Ward’s family and will continue to offer any help we can. We refute any allegations of a cover-up.”
Scotland Yard also rejected any suggestion of a conspiracy. They said: “Officers have exhausted all lines of enquiry that the MPS is able to progress.
“In 2018 the Met decided to suspend its investigation and updated Julie’s family accordingly.”
In the late 1980s, Moi was seen as a stable influence in a volatile East Africa, although corruption flourished and the economy stagnated in his 24-year reign.
John said: “They chose to support Moi rather than me. They supported a Kenyan cover-up to maintain diplomatic relations. They hoped it would die down and I’d go away – but we haven’t let it.
“People tried to sweep it under the carpet, you get quite bloody-minded. It goes on and on, it never stops.”