Family Battle over Patriarch’s Burial Site Heads to Court of Appeal
A bitter family dispute over the final resting place of the late Mburu Kinani has escalated to the Court of Appeal, preventing his burial.The conflict pits the deceased’s biological children against the children of his second wife.
Mr. Kinani passed away on November 20, 2024, and his body remains at AIC Kijabe Hospital mortuary as the legal battle continues.
The biological children, Ides Wairimu Mburu, Joyce Muthoni Mburu, Hannah Wanjiku Mburu, and Antony Kinani Mburu, want their father buried in his ancestral home in Gatanga, Murang’a County, where his parents and first wife are interred.
However, the children of his second wife, Geoffrey Nganga Mburu, Alice Wambui Mburu, Rosemary Njeri Kirika, Regina Muthoni Mburu, and Patrick Karanja Mburu, insist he should be buried on his own farm in Gilgil, Nakuru County, next to their mother.
The case has already seen two court judgments. Initially, a Nairobi Principal Magistrate’s Court ruled in June 2025 that the burial should proceed in Gatanga, in accordance with Agikuyu customary law.
Dissatisfied, the second family appealed to the High Court. On September 16, 2025, Lady Justice Hellen Namisi overturned the lower court’s decision. In a detailed judgment, Justice Namisi ordered that the deceased be buried in Gilgil.
The judge found that while the deceased’s specific wishes were not clearly proven, his life choices were undeniable.
She noted he had lived in Gilgil for over four decades, established a home there, and entered a statutory Christian marriage with his second wife there in 2020.
The judge also referenced letters from 2009 indicating a broken relationship with his first family.
Justice Namisi ruled that applying a rigid customary rule to force a burial in Gatanga would disregard the deceased’s “profound, lifelong and constitutionally protected choices” and would be “repugnant to justice.”
Just hours after this judgment was delivered, the biological children, through their lawyer Danstan Omari, filed an urgent application to stop the burial. They have also filed a Notice of Appeal and a Memorandum of Appeal at the Court of Appeal, challenging the High Court’s decision.
In a Certificate of Urgency, they pleaded with the court to issue an order to “stay the execution of this Court’s judgment,” arguing that if their father is buried in Gilgil, their right to appeal will be extinguished.
They state that the loss they would suffer is “immeasurable as it is humanly impossible to calculate human grief and anguish.”
Their appeal lists 20 grounds, arguing that the High Court judge erred in law by relying on documents they claim were not properly filed in the lower court and by misapplying the legal concept of “proximity.”
They maintain that as biological children, they have the closest legal tie to their father and the right to bury him.
The court now faces a race against time to decide whether to grant the stay and pause the burial pending the appeal, or to allow the High Court’s orders to stand, finally allowing the late Mburu Kinani to be laid to rest after nearly ten months.
Justice Namisi herself acknowledged the difficult outcome, stating, “Whatever the outcome of this case, there will be one part of the family that will be unhappy with it.”
