A former worker at the Cohen residence on Tuesday told the Kibera High Court that he once saw Sarah Cohen holding a chair over her husband’s head during a domestic altercation, a claim the defence immediately sought to discredit.
Testifying before Justice Diana Kavedza in the ongoing murder trial, Chrispinus Chehemi said he was inside the compound when he heard a commotion and the voice of the late Tob Cohen shouting, ‘You’re killing me’.
He went outside and found Cohen crying on the stairs.
The Dutch businessman, the court heard, was heavily intoxicated and, according to the witness, unable to defend himself.
Sarah stood nearby holding a chair above him.
Chehemi told the court he intervened by speaking to Sarah, who listened to him. But after he helped Cohen out of the scuffle, the businessman tore his wife’s dress and verbally abused her.
The account is significant because it supports the defence narrative that Tob Cohen was a difficult and erratic man whose behaviour generated constant friction at home.
Defence counsel, led by Senior Counsel Philip Murgor alongside Senior Counsel Pravin Bowry, has argued that Cohen’s unpredictable nature lay at the heart of the household’s troubles.
But under cross-examination, counsel put it to Chehemi that the chair detail appeared nowhere in his earlier statements.
“In four statements you have not mentioned a chair,” counsel said.
Chehemi replied that he was not aware of the omission.
Counsel suggested the testimony about the chair was untrue.
Chehemi maintained that he had not recorded everything, explaining that a domestic worker becomes part of a family and there are things one simply accepts.
He also said he did not interfere in the couple’s disputes because no distress call had ever come from the house.
The court heard that Cohen and Sarah were technically separated and that there was no dedicated security guard at the property. Security duties were shared. Chehemi said Cohen came home very late very many times.
The witness described a household in which the late businessman’s moods shifted sharply.
He testified that Cohen was a heavy drinker who could finish a whole mzinga of Red Label alone with plenty of ice, and a chain smoker who kept ashtrays in every corner of the compound, including the office.
Asked whether Cohen smoked things other than cigarettes, Chehemi said he realised later.
When Justice Kavedza asked whether the other things smoked by Cohen included bhang, he confirmed he smoked the weed.
Chehemi said Cohen was rough with his words rather than his hands as he abused him by calling him foolish and stupid.
He said he did not take the abuses seriously because Cohen would give him KES 1,000 or KES 2,000 every so often.
On his dismissal, the witness said Cohen accused him of disobedience after he refused to break open a safe.
Two men in plainclothes handcuffed him and Cohen drove him to Spring Valley Police Station, where he was booked around 8pm and released about 10pm without charge.
Sarah was away travelling at that time, Chehemi said, and Cohen forced him to sign a dismissal letter under threat of calling the police back.
Counsel suggested Cohen engineered reasons to dismiss him whenever Sarah was absent.
Chehemi agreed, saying Sarah had always been his defense.
The hearing continues.
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