News

By Cyrus Ombati and Douglas Okwatch

Miss Winnie Wangui Mwai and Mr Artur Margaryan have lifted the lid on a love affair whose script reads like a soap opera with spontaneous, dramatic confessions.

With this, the piece that has been missing from a jigsaw puzzle of high society dinners, booze, guns and fast cars in which Winnie appeared to be always at the centre finally fell in place — romance.

Both were miles apart. But the moonstruck couple did not disappoint with their stunning admissions.

And both confirmed on Wednesday that the nuptials would be just a matter of time. "I love her and I trust her very much. She is the only person who has not betrayed my loyalty," Margaryan, whose accounts in a book he is writing, and is due for publication in early next month, could ruffle feathers by exposing the "who-is-who" that visited the posh Runda address he shared with his alleged brother, said of his love life in an exclusive interview with The Standard.

The book, ‘The Artur’s X-Files’, is being co-authored with a British and Kenyan journalist, a female whose identity Margaryan declined to reveal. It would reportedly put to ‘utter shame’ some ministers in the Kibaki Government, who Margaryan says, he gave hefty bribes to stay on and do business.

"I used to call him James and I would like to be called Mrs James or Mrs Margaryan after the marriage is formalised," encapsulates Winnie’s desire and leaves no doubt as to how far she is prepared to go with the relationship.

No more speculation

She used the interview with a local FM radio station to call on the Government to clear her boyfriend’s name, which was the subject of a commission of inquiry that drew harsh criticism from anti-Government elements over the manner in which it went about picking witnesses. Its findings largely remain unknown, even though the President had promised to expedite action.

The admissions end almost a year of grapevine and speculation over whether indeed Margaryan — who Interpol categorises as an international fugitive on the run — and Winnie, the daughter of Narc-Kenya activist, Ms Mary Wambui, were lovers.

Winnie chose a local radio station to bare it all. Margaryan, in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location with The Standard — which he claims is his favourite media house although some matters regarding this preference are still a subject of investigation — confirmed Wangui’s expose.

It is unlikely, however, that the couple could tie the knot in Nairobi, the capital which is Margaryan’s honeymoon destination of choice. This is because Margaryan and his introverted, less flamboyant sibling, Artur Sargasyan, are supposed to have been deported from the country in June last year, after a security rumpus at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The Rambo-like Margaryan reportedly drew a gun on airport security officials.

They meet often

Winnie told the FM radio station that her life’s desire was to marry Margaryan, whose real identity and that of his brother is a subject of controversy.

On Wednesday, speculation was rife that marriage to the daughter of one of the most influential women in Kenya today, could offer Margaryan a safe passage back. "I see him quite often. He is my boyfriend and I will get married to him soon here in Kenya. Watch me," said Wangui.

Moments after delivering the sensational radio interview, Margaryan was on phone from his hideout talking to The Standard and expressing, in his staccato accent, how he yearns to be united in matrimony with his Kenyan lover.

"She comes to see me very often, we are together a lot of the time. Before she went to give the interview (on radio) she spoke to me to say she loved me," Margaryan, who drove in unmarked cars, told The Standard. At the height of their notoriety, police recovered GK plates and deadly weapons, including AK-47 rifles and shotguns, in his compound. "In a week’s time, she will join me," Margaryan intimated, without saying exactly where.

On her part, Wangui occasionally broke into laughter during the animated morning interview.

They were not criminals

Asked her how she fell in love with Margaryan, she said: "You know the beginning is normal, as you have to take your time with the person you have met to know him more. "I never saw him as arrogant and rough as claimed. He was a good-hearted and honest person. We became very close of course but I don’t want to get into details because it will be messy."

Wangui who said she has never picked up her suspension letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she works, told of how desperately she tried to stop the ejection of the brothers. "I tried to stop it (deportation) through my lawyer, who I also sent to the Kiruki Commission to show his other side of life. I know they were not criminals," she said.

It was the first time yesterday that Wangui, who has always been linked to the Arturs, spoke publicly about his involvement with the men said to be Armenians. The two left the country in controversial circumstances. The official line is that they were deported, to which Margaryan once again responded thus: "They (read authorities) put me on a top class airline to where I chose to go. That’s not being removed."

Wangui wants children with Artur

In the radio interview, Wangui spoke of a grand weddding to Margaryan, probably before the end of the year.

Wangui, a Government employee, was among 10 civil servants suspended last June over the infamous Artur brothers saga. Their exploits are said to have caused bad blood between former CID boss Mr Joseph Kamau and Police Commissioner Maj-Gen Hussein Ali.

Winnie rekindled that chapter in a breakfast interview, when she spoke of her relationship with Margaryan. She denied common speculation in sections of the media that she was expecting Margaryan’s baby, but said she would like to have children with him.

She defended Margaryan against accusations that he and Sargsyan were international crooks. "I know they are not criminals and they did not draw guns at the airport as it was reported. The issue was blown out of proportion by those who claimed were witnessess. No one knew the truth about them and I wanted to tell it in vain."

Wangui spoke of how she met the men she described as good-hearted and honest businessmen in Dubai while on a trip. She said she was introduced to the two sometime in 2005 by a friend who she did not name and told they were potential investors and decided to do business with them, through Kensington Holdings.

The firm was owned by the Arturs, Ms Wangui, Julius Maina Mwangi and Aloise Otieno Omita, the Kiruki Commission was told last year. Lawyer Gibson Kamau Kuria represented her at the commission and could at times defend the Arturs as good people.

She talked of difficulties she went through when the commission started the hearings on the activities of the Armenians, describing it as a very "difficult time." Said she: "Friends desert you at a time of need. But my mother stood by me all that time."