A 94-year-old man has been committed to civil jail by a Kitui court over a land dispute.
Mr Mbatha Muyuma, the estate administrator of the late Muyuma, was sentenced to 30 days in civil jail after failing to pay a Sh380,000 debt linked to a 600-hectare parcel of land. By the time of his committal, he had paid Sh40,000.
The nonagenarian, who has hearing difficulties and suffers from dementia and arthritis, was picked up from his home on Friday, December 19, at around 11am by plainclothes police officers.
He was presented before a magistrate who immediately ordered his incarceration despite his frail condition, difficulty in walking, uncoordinated speech, and deteriorating health.
Kitui GK Prison officers initially declined to admit him after it emerged that the court committal documents were incoherent.
On Monday, December 21, police officers returned him to court in a sickly and haggard state, where the court duty corrected the errors in the committal. Mr Muyuma is now set to spend Christmas and New Year in jail over a land dispute debt affecting a 40-member family, a case that dates back to 1969.
Efforts to sell part of the land to settle the debt have so far failed.
