Tirop’s family claims justice has not yet been done

• Tirop made her first appearance at the national level at the Kenyan Cross Country Championship in 2012, finishing second behind Faith Chepngetich.
• Tirop was found dead on 13 October 2021 in her house in Iten with several stabs on her body.
• Her family claims justice has not yet been done.

Barely a year since the Kenyan athlete Agnes Tirop was found dead; her family claims justice has not yet been done.

Agnes Tirop celebrating after winning the bronze medal in the Women’s 10,000m race final at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha. Photo/ Skysports

Tirop was found dead on 13 October 2021 in her house in Iten with several stabs on her body, and 12 months after her death, her family has not yet received justice.

According to her parents in an interview with BBC Sports Africa, their daughter’s murder suspect Ibrahim Rotich is yet to be tried. Their tears and memories are still fresh, with the last Sunday marking her first death anniversary.

“We have been going through lots of pain, living a sad life every day since the murder of my daughter,” Dinah said.
“I am still mourning her. I haven’t been alright since my daughter passed on.”

Abraham Rotich, said to be Tirops husband, was arrested as the immediate suspect in her murder and has been in jail for a year.

Earlier, the prosecution filed an affidavit to oppose Rotich’s release on bond of the accused, pointing to various reasons warranting denial of bail or bond, for he would have interfered with the witness.

Through the affidavit, the prosecution also noted that it had enough evidence that connected the suspect to Tirop’s murder, an incentive for the accused to abscond court.

The court stated that the ten front witnesses were Rotich’s family members who are well known to him, and he could easily interfere with the evidence.

Tirops’ death came at the peak of her career, and a month just before her death, she had set a new world record in the women’s 10km race in Germany.

She was a 10,000m two-time bronze medallist at the World Athletics Championships and finished fourth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

Tirop made her first appearance at the national level at the Kenyan Cross Country Championship in 2012, finishing second behind Faith Chepngetich, which saw her selected to represent the country at the 2012 African Cross Country Championship, where she also finished second.

She gained significant prominence through her entry in the 5000meters at the 2012 World Junior Championship in Athletics, where she recorded a personal best of 15:36:74.

She broke the world record in a 10-kilometre women-only event in September 2021, setting a time record of 30:01 in an event in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

In October 2021, she finished second in the Giants Geneva race behind Kalkidan Gezahegne, setting a time of 30:20.