Kenyan pleads ‘not guilty’, keeps up brave front

Kenyan national Asha Atieno Ogutu pleaded “not guilty” yesterday to charges of drug trafficking.

Told that the Kenyan Embassy would not provide her a lawyer, she followed the judge’s advice to select from among several lawyers.

She chose Ricardo Amores.

The woman, who was arrested upon arrival last week at the Mactan International Airport where three kilos of shabu were found concealed in a false bottom of her suitcase, received the bad news from Lapu-Lapu City jail warden Jennifer Joyce Abar about the feedback of the Kenyan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“All they could do is assist her in contacting her family. Of course, her morale was low but she later said it was okay,” Abar told Cebu Daily News.

A preliminary conference will be held on Oct. 19 and her pre-trial starts on Oct. 27.

If convicted, she faces life imprisonment and a fine of P500,000 to P10 million.

Abar said the Kenyan woman was putting up a brave front in the past week of her detention at the Lapu-Lapu City Jail Female Dormitory.

She said Ogutu managed to learn some Visayan words like maayong buntag (good morning), estoryahe (let’s talk) and sige’g balik (keep repeating).

“She’s very friendly and she gets along well with the other inmates. She writes down all the things they teach her,” Abar said. Inmates call her “Miss Brown.”

The foreign inmate is already starting to adjust to her new schedule.

“They have a different time zone there (in Kenya), which is why she sleeps and wakes up late,” Abar told Cebu Daily News.

The jail warden said Ogutu, a single mother, still cries every time she thinks of her children.

“When she eats or sleeps, she cries every time she remembers her children. We understand her. We are also mothers,” Abar said. Correspondent Patricia Andrea Pateña and Reporter Jucell Marie P. Cuyos