Murder suspect Joseph Irungu aka Jowie yesterday walked straight out of court and hugged his fiance TV journalist Jacque Maribe. He held her for exactly 10 seconds.

This was the first time that the two embraced in public since they were charged with the murder of Monicah Kimani.

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To the shock of onlookers along the court corridors, Jowie also hugged his fiancee’s mother.

Clad in a white T-shirt and black trousers, Jowie was later whisked away by prison warders after hugging other friends.

The two would occasionally speak to each other in the dock with heads bowed as if to hide from the glaring cameras but did not seem to care about the media or the public, an indication that they might have reconciled. Maribe and Jowie allegedly murdered Nyawira on September 19.

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Yesterday, the state disclosed that Maribe will not get her car yet because it is an exhibit in the matter.

The prosecution informed the court that government chemist is not done analysing the car due to lack of some reagents and once the analysis is completed and the vehicle presented as an exhibit, it can be handed over to her.

It also emerged in court that the prosecution is yet to supply both Maribe and Jowie with statements from protected witnesses because the witness protection agency is still not done with them.

When the case came up for mention yesterday, Jowie complained that he has not been taken for surgery but only subjected to physiotherapy at the Kenyatta National Hospital. He sought to be allowed to seek further treatment in a different hospital.

Jowie told the court that his left arm risks not functioning if he is not promptly accorded the right treatment.

In the event he is not allowed to seek treatment at an alternative hospital, he said, the court should consider granting him bail.

However, Dr Benjamin Obwire who is a specialist in plastic and rehabilitative surgery at Kenyatta National Hospital, took to the witness dock and said that Jowie does not need any surgery based on tests run by the hospital.

He said Jowie did not have any open wound on the hand except scars.

The tests, the doctor said, revealed that even though Jowie did not have an injury to his nerve the axons in the left hand have been affected.

An axon, or nerve fibre, is a long slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron’s cell body or soma.

Axons are in effect the primary transmission lines of the nervous system, and as bundles, they help make up nerves.

In his view what Jowie needed was a rehabilitative treatment which includes physiotherapy and occupational therapy to help the axons grow back.

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Credits; The Star