DONDE GIRL FACES DEATH OVER DRUGS

"The Whole Family Is Devastated With The Unfolding Events"

ONE of the two Kenyan female students facing death sentence if
convicted for drug trafficking offences is a daughter of former Gem
MP Joe Donde.

But last evening, a distraught Donde maintained her daughter's
innocence and insisted that she could be a victim of circumstances.

Mr. Donde, whose daughter Deborah, a second year Architecture student
in a Kualar Lumpur university to be charged with trafficking in large
quantities of marijuana, claimed that she and two other colleagues
had only gone visiting a fellow Saudi student south of the capital
when police came calling in the house and seized the four kilogram
marijuana haul.

Government Spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua said Kenyan diplomats in
Malaysia and neighbouring countries had taken up the matter. "We are
yet to be fully furnished with enough details, but our envoys there
are following up the matter," said Dr. Mutua during his weekly press
briefing.

"She and two other girls had gone to visit fellow Saudi students and
while in the rooms, police came in and discovered 4 kilos of
marijuana and took them along", Donde said.

Malaysian law, under which they will be charged, sets a mandatory
death sentence for anyone, including foreigners, found in possession
of 200 grams or more of marijuana whose minimum sentence with Kenyan
law is 10 years imprisonment.

The law, which was introduced in 1981 to stem the lucrative trade and
handling of the drug, has since seen over 100 people hanged for the
offence.

The former MP, who is credited with the Donde Bill that proposed for
the regulation of bank interest rates, said the whole family was
devastated with the unfolding events.

He confirmed that he had talked to her "devastated" daughter on phone
from the cells and that her mother had flown to Kualar Lumpur to give
her moral support because she is innocent.

"We shall be in a position to know the full truth when her mother
arrives in Kuala Lumpur," Donde, who is scheduled to address a press
conference today morning told the Kenya Times on telephone.

The former MP said her daughter was poised to come over for holiday
and that they had already sent her air ticket before the incident
happened last weekend.

Deborah is the younger sister of Eva who has represented Kenya in
swimming at the Olympics and All Africa Games.

International news agencies had on Wednesday reported that two Kenyan
female students studying in Malaysia could be hanged following their
arrest last weekend with huge quantities of Marijuana in their
student apartments.

The news agencies did not, however, give their names and only
indicated that they were aged between 18 and 22 and are students at a
higher learning institution in a town south of Kuala Lumpur.

They had been seized alongside two other students--one from Eritrea
and another from Saudi Arabia--in a town south of the country's
capital of Kuala Lumpur where they are learning, the paper said.

"They were arrested in a special operation last weekend by our
district police narcotics officers", a Mr. Zahedi Ayob, a district
police chief in which the town of Cyberjaya falls was quoted as saying.

According to the news agency which broke the story, the quantity of
the drug haul netted with the four is enough to have them face the
death penalty under the Malaysian law. Ayob is also said to have
confirmed that indeed, the evidence to charge them was available.

The police chief who said the arrests were made following a tip off,
said the students were being detained until today when investigations
and evidence assembling is expected to be completed.

Thereafter, they would be formally charged on drug trafficking
charges.

The street value of the four kilo haul which was found packed in four
slabs and various small plastic packets is estimated to be about Sh.
140,722. Police are said to be investigating the source of the
supply, how they came to possess it and what it was intended for.