Nation Media Group Jacktone Odhiambo, the man charged with the brutal killing of LGBTQ activist Edwin Kiprotich, alias Chiloba, has told an Eldoret court that the deceased, who was his mutual friend, had branded him a womaniser. Mr Odhiambo told the court that he lived with Chiloba in the same room while he was a student at the University of Eldoret, and that the deceased was always angry whenever he saw him interacting with women and girls. "Chiloba used to accuse me of being a womaniser and questioned why I loved to interact with ladies.
He was short-tempered and furious, leading to an argument in our apartment room," he told Justice Reuben Nyakundi during the defence hearing on Tuesday. Mr Odhiambo, who has denied killing Chiloba, told the court that he fell unconscious upon learning about his brutal murder through social media. The accused person dismissed claims to the effect that he was involved in a romantic relationship with the deceased, whose mutilated body was discovered stuffed in a metallic box and dumped along the Kipkenyo-Kaptinga road on the outskirts of Eldoret town on the morning of January 3, 2023.
"I never engaged sexually with Chiloba as claimed, but our relationship was a mutual friendship," Odhiambo said in court. The late Chiloba was a final-year Apparel Fashion and Design student at the University of Eldoret. Odhiambo further told the court that he received many messages of condolence from his friends after the murder of Chiloba, then aged 26, went vi.