Lawyer of Briton denies woman died taking "selfies with a gun"

June 10, 2016 10:49 AM

He said Alden pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and would seek bail at a hearing on June 16. Okundi said he could not for now give further details about the case.

British businessman Richard Alden, 53, arrested on suspicion of the murder of Grace Kinyanjui at his house in Karen, stands inside the dock at the Kibera Law Courts outside the Nairobi, Kenya, June 6, 2016.

A defence lawyer for a British business executive who was charged on Friday with the murder of a Kenyan woman has denied a previous account which suggested she had died while taking "selfies with a gun" that accidentally went off.

Another lawyer, Evans Monari, who is no longer defending businessman Richard Alden, 52, gave the "selfies" account on Monday when the Briton was remanded in custody pending further investigations into the death of Grace Wangeci, 42.

"The selfie story is not consistent with the statement recorded by Richard Alden at the police station," a current member of the defence team, lawyer Tom Okundi, told Reuters, adding he could not explain how that version had emerged.

Lawyer Monari, who had said on Monday that Wangeci died accidentally while "taking selfies with a gun", directed enquiries to the defence team when contacted on Friday.

In his bail application, Alden said he had taken Wangeci to hospital and had called the police, citing these as reasons why he was not a flight risk, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.

Alden, who lives in the upscale Karen district of the capital Nairobi, is married with three children.