Representatives of Del Monte Kenya have been accused of offering bribes in an attempt to cover up the circumstances in which four men died after going to steal pineapples from its farm in December.
The men’s bodies were recovered from a river on the vast plantation near Thika on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day last year. The four were part of a group of men who it is claimed were chased by the farm’s security guards after going to steal pineapples on 21 December.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Representatives of Del Monte Kenya have been accused of offering bribes in an attempt to cover up the circumstances in which four men died after going to steal pineapples from its farm in December.
Men in the group who went to steal from the farm claimed in interviews and sworn statements that they saw their friends “brutally beaten” by guards with metal rods next to the pineapple field.
In interviews and affidavits, representatives of Del Monte are also accused of offering jobs and money to those willing to make statements that the men simply drowned running away from a botched raid.
A confidential report on human rights violations at the farm seen by the Guardian last month was highly critical and included claims that the company’s employees were working with a cartel of thieves, providing them with intelligence.
Men who took part in the 21 December raid claim that representatives of Del Monte made several attempts to gain their support in the weeks after their friends’ bodies were found.
They claim the company’s representatives offered bribes to people in an attempt to persuade them to make statements supporting the farm’s version of events: that the men had drowned trying to cross the river while running away.
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