KENYA: Bodies of Kenyan ministers dead in plane crash are recovered

Record ID: 360929

  • Title: KENYA: Bodies of Kenyan ministers dead in plane crash are recovered
  • Date: 11th June 2008
  • Summary: MEDICS REMOVING BODIES FROM HELICOPTER RELATIVES LOOKING ON PRIME MINISTER, RAILA ODINGA (RIGHT) AND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER MUSALIA MUDAVADI WALKING VICE PRESIDENT, KALONZO MUSYOKA LOOKING ON
  • Embargoed: 26th June 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5LHGNXWKXBRM7I8WUPVAT7Q9O
  • Story Text: The bodies of a Kenyan cabinet minister and assistant minister killed in a plane crash arrived at a Nairobi airport on Wednesday (June 11), a day after their light plane went down near the Maasai Mara game reserve.
    Roads Minister Kipkalya Kones, 56, and Assistant Minister for Home Affairs Lorna Laboso, 47, were aboard the plane with a pilot and a security guard, who also died.
    There was no immediate confirmation for the cause of the crash in a remote area called Kajong'a, about 90 km (56 miles) west of the capital Nairobi. The plane was bound for Kericho, Kenya's tea-farming capital in the Rift Valley.
    Both politicians were members of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, which had opposed President Mwai Kibaki and advocated public protests after he won a disputed re-election in December.
    Kenya's president Mwai Kibaki in a statement on Tuesday (June 10) made no mention of succession for the ministers, but it is almost certain that their replacements would be drawn from ODM under terms of the power-sharing agreement that binds the coalition together.
    Party colleagues, including Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is the head of ODM, friends and family Kones was a five-term member of parliament and was first elected in 1988, after a career as a teacher and manager at a produce firm. He held several other ministries throughout his public career.
    Laboso was a first-term legislator who campaigned against the cultural practice of female genital mutilation in her Kipsigis tribe.
    After a career as a secretary and accountant, she got her university degree in communications last year.
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