'Justice for murdered geologist'
Mike Pflanz, The Scotsman, August 22, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya - The killers of 71-year-old Scottish geologist Campbell Bridges will be pursued and brought to justice, a senior Kenyan cabinet minister vowed yesterday.
"This was a terrible crime," public health minister Beth Mugo told a sombre memorial service for the murdered gem expert. Her husband, a former Kenyan ambassador, is a close family friend of the Bridges.
"The government will do everything it can to make sure Campbell's killers are caught and face justice," she said.
Her comments were echoed by Johnson Muthama, Kenya's deputy government chief whip, who promised to keep the spotlight on the case.
Yesterday, Mr Bridges' 32-year-old son, Bruce, told The Scotsman that alleged Kenyan police corruption meant that he had "no hope" for justice.
His father, one of the world's leading gemstone experts, was killed last Tuesday by a gang wielding machetes and spears close to his mine 190 miles south-east of Nairobi.
More than 200 people gathered at Nairobi's All Saints Cathedral yesterday for the two-hour memorial service, which opened with a lament played by a kilted piper.
Many of the dozen speakers referred to Mr Bridges as "genuinely larger than life" who loved telling jokes, even bad ones, "because he just liked to laugh as much as possible".
Mr Bridges is believed to have been killed by illegal claim-jumpers who had threatened for the last three years to force him off his mine, or to kill him.