A 27-year-old woman stunned a Nairobi Court after she sued her former boss who she claimed withheld her two months wages after she declined to wash a corpse hidden under his bed. The case was filed before Kibera Senior Principal Magistrate Elizabeth Juma who was informed that Mohammed Abdi Noor refused to pay the petitioner KSh 13,000.
In her statement, the woman said she worked for Noor as a house help and he had agreed to pay KSh her 6,500 monthly, but the pay was increased by KSh 500 after she was ordered to take up the new assignment.
“One week after I started working for the family, Noor’s wife told me that if my work remained as impressive, she would give me a KSh 500 raise to the KSh 6,500 that I was earning. She added that they had a new assignment for me, which her husband would brief me about later,” she stated.
One evening after her employer returned from work, the woman said, she was called inside his boss' bedroom and Noor locked all doors. While inside, she was shown the corpse which she was supposed to clean everyday at exactly 10am.
According to the woman, the male body was wrapped in a mat and hidden under his employer's bed in an apartment in Pangani, Nairobi. “He asked me to push the bed away from the wall.
I stepped on something and when I looked down, I jumped in shock. “He said I will be required to clean the corpse. When I declined, he shoved his gun at me and said I would do it by force,” the court was told.
The woman said the instructions of sprucing the lifeless body included using water, bath gel and face towel. The dead man, her employer stated, was to be cleaned from the face, body and down to its groin region.
The court was also informed that a man, who her employers branded to as doctor, would come to the house regularly to treat the body. Noor's wife also warned her against touching money which appeared under the corpse.
“She told me the doctor came to treat the body so it does not smell. She also warned me to touch the wad of money that mysteriously appeared below the body at my own risk,” the woman quoted words of her employers wife.
On Friday, September 28, she alleges Noor got violent with her after she declined to perform the new task. She claimed her employer sexually assaulted her and also beat her, an altercation that attracted his wife who was asleep.
The woman was later thrown out of the house without payment of her two-months work. This prompted her to report the matter to the police, FIDA Kenya, Ministry of Labour, Kenya Human Rights Commission and Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu). Her employer was arrested and charged with declining to pay her and also holding a body and stopping it from being buried.