Corpun file 0559 at www.corpun.com

The Nation, Nairobi, 2 November 1996

[Court news]

[Original headline: Man charged over city siege]

By Adieri Mulaa

(extract)

A man who stole a Sh350 wristwatch was yesterday jailed for 18 months by a Makadara court.

Thomas Nzomo will also receive two strokes. He stole the watch from Mr George William Otieno last September 26 in Nairobi's Ronald Ngala Street.

In the same court court, a man was jailed for 18 months for stealing Sh570.

Stephen Ngorao Musyoka will receive three strokes of the cane for robbing Ms Florence Makori in Pumwani.

Copyright © 1996 Africa Online Inc. and Nation Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Corpun file 0561 at www.corpun.com

The Nation, Nairobi, 21 November 1996

Man appeals his way to a death sentence

By Maguta Kimemia

There was consternation in the Court of Appeal yesterday when a three-judge Bench sentenced a man initially jailed by a magistrate's court for 10 years, later reduced to six years by the High Court, to death for the same offences. During the ruling, Johana Ndung'u, who was seated in the dock beside a uniformed prisons officer, looked relaxed, well-groomed and confident. However, as the import of what the judges had decided slowly dawned on him, he became both alarmed and confused.

The dark complexioned man, in his early 30s, appeared to become even darker and stood up shakily in a last desperate appeal to his lawyer, Dr John Khaminwa, who moved towards the dock solicitously to both hear and console his client.

The crowd in court, mainly lawyers who had come to listen to the ruling, looked at each other in stunned disbelief. At first, no-one uttered a word.

Dr Khaminwa, accompanied by lawyer Gitobu Imanyara, sought to console Ndung'u by assuring him that there was still hope for him in that the President could exercise the Prerogative of Mercy and save his life.

In the surprise ruling, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Majid Cockar, Mr Justice Akilano Akiwumi and Mr Justice A. B. Shah set aside the sentence of imprisonment and strokes for robbery entered by the Malindi Senior Magistrate, Mr J. R. Karanja, against Ndung'u and confirmed by the High Court on appeal.

The judges substituted the sentence with conviction for a mandatory death sentence under Section 296(2) of the Penal Code for the offence for which Ndungu and two others had been charged.

The three had been convicted by the magistrate on April 22, 1993, on the offence of robbery. Each was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment with 15 strokes of the cane and thereafter police supervision for five years.

The High Court later dismissed their appeal, but reduced the sentence to six years' jail with three strokes each, and confirmed the supervision order.

Ndung'u filed the final appeal on June 11 this year.

He and the others had been accused of robbing a tourist of two cameras and injuring him as he took pictures on a beach.

However, in the ruling read by the Chief Justice, the judges said the magistrate should have sentenced Ndung'u and his co-accused to death because all the important ingredients warranting such a conviction had been proved.

"That anomaly has to be looked into and rectified unless the Legislature has reasons of its own for [the anomaly] to continue," the judges said.

They described as "misdirection" the trial magistrate's contention that "the offence was not [so] aggravated [as] to warrant a capital robbery charge" and the first appellate judge's upholding of the imprisonment sentence.

Ndungu's confederates are still serving the lesser sentence and have apparently entered no appeal.

Copyright © 1996 Africa Online Inc. and Nation Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.