Joanna Stutchburry, an environment activist known for her fight aimed at protecting Kiambu forest has been murdered.
Stutchburry who has stayed in Kenya for decades was on Thursday afternoon shot dead inside her car by unknown assailants.
The incident has attracted the attention of President Uhuru Kenyatta who on Friday morning asked that officers drawn from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation track down the killers.
According to her close ally Jacky Arkle, Stutchburry was shot four times and left to die while she was inside her car.
“Nothing was stolen from her, she was fighting to save Kiambu forest. The body was first found by neighbours who went to get some items from her. They heard her car engine running and as they moved closer they found her lifeless body,” she said.
K24 Digital has established that she had successfully moved to court and gotten several stop orders that barred any developments around the forest.
Amnesty International on Thursday night condemned the killings and asked DCI boss Gorge Kinoti to unravel what really transpired and who killed her.
“Amnesty Kenya condemns the violent killing of environmental defender Joanna Stutchburry. We call on DCI Kenya and Environment Kenya to thoroughly investigate her murder,” said Houghton Irungu, Amnesty International boss.
In 2018, Stutchburry shocked Kiambu residents when she single-handedly stopped a private developer from going on with an illegal development in Kiambu forest.
The developer was in the process of putting up a road through a wet part within the forest that could access a larger plot he was planning to sell.
She then moved to court and the illegal encroachment was stopped.
However, K24 Digital has established that Stutchburry at times could raise concerns that she was fearing for her life.
She said that while she was stopping the illegal encroachment, the private developer even pointed a gun at her but she never moved an inch.
Stutchburry first moved to Kiambu in 1978 and according to her, she was attracted by forest lands and the quiet life around the forest.
Kiambu forest covers more than 1,000 hectares and was gazetted as a protected area in 1963.
In 1988 she led a deadly protest where several activists put down illegal structures in Karura Forest and they further destroyed a building machine that cost millions then.
