Rosemary Chemutai Koech was buried in the wee hours of Saturday, August 29, despite an interim court order stopping her burial, after the order obtained by her husband, Kevin Migwe Kimwatu, was not legally served on the family before she was laid to rest.
Koech was buried at her parents’ home in Chepseon, Kericho County, where funeral arrangements had been made for her burial on Saturday.
The Milimani Commercial Magistrate’s Court had on Friday, August 28, issued orders restraining Koech’s relatives, KCB Bank Kenya Limited and other respondents from removing her body from Lee Funeral Home or proceeding with her burial without Kimwatu’s consent or involvement.
The orders were issued by Hon Agnes Mwangi, SPM, at 9:33 a.m. on August 28 after Kimwatu filed an application seeking to stop the burial.
However, the court also directed that the application be served upon the respondents.
The order carried a penal notice stating that disobedience or non-observance of the court order served on the respondents would attract penal consequences.
The development has now raised questions over whether the family had been legally served with the order before the burial proceeded in the early hours of Saturday.
The late KCB employee Rosemary Koech. Photo/Screengrab
The court had specifically ordered that the respondents, their relatives, servants, agents or employees be restrained from interring Koech without Kimwatu’s consent or involvement pending the inter partes hearing.
It also barred them from making funeral arrangements and conducting the burial without his involvement.
Why Kevin Kimwatu went to court
Kimwatu moved to court on August 26 after he said he discovered that Koech’s body was to be released to his sister-in-law, Judy Koech-Oyamo, while he had not been involved in the funeral arrangements.
He told the court that he was legally married to Koech, having wed her on August 24, 2013, at St Austin’s Catholic Church in Nairobi.
The couple had four children.
Kimwatu said he and Koech had been separated for about four months before her death but maintained that they remained husband and wife.
He further told the court that Koech had recently expressed a desire to return to their matrimonial home and that he had agreed to the reconciliation.
“Unfortunately, she passed on before she could return home,” Kimwatu said in his court papers.
‘Our marriage had challenges’
Kimwatu described their marriage as loving and supportive, while acknowledging that they had experienced difficulties.
“Our marriage was, throughout its subsistence, a happy, loving and harmonious union characterised by mutual affection, companionship and support,” he said.
He said the challenges they faced were part of the difficulties experienced in married life and were not serious enough to diminish the love and happiness in their relationship.
Kimwatu told the court that he wanted to bury Koech at his ancestral home in Matasia, Ngong, Kajiado County.
He also expressed concern that he and their children could face difficulties accessing her grave if she was buried at her parents’ home without his involvement.
“Having not been involved in the burial arrangements, I am apprehensive that my deceased wife will not be given a befitting send-off and further whether our children and I will ever have access to the deceased’s grave site,” he said.
Court case continues
The court certified Kimwatu’s application as urgent and issued the interim injunctions pending an inter partes hearing.
The matter is scheduled for August 31, 2026, for further directions.
Koech, who was 40, died on August 21, 2026. She was a senior KCB executive who served as head of data protection in the bank’s risk division.