Two death row inmates have lost a second appeal after being sentenced to death for robbing six people, including an Australian social worker, of property worth Sh1.3 million in 2006.
In a decision issued by the Court of Appeal Judges Kathurima M’inoti, Sankale Ole Kantai, and Imaana Laibuta stated that they found nothing to interfere with the findings of the trial court and High Court in sentencing Harrison Kariuki Mwangi and Kennedy Otieno Juma to death.
The court heard that Mwangi and Juma, along with others, robbed Valerie Ann Leakey, Charlotte Campbell Stephens, John Clifford Adam, Susan Patricia Perrow Adam, Lessa Adeline Dane, and Peter John Dane on March 31, 2006, at Masai Lodge area in Kajiado County, of an assortment of personal effects valued at Sh1.3m.
After hearing the prosecution and defense, the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Kibera handed down its decision on December 2, 2013, convicting the two of robbery with violence and sentencing them to death.
Dissatisfied with their conviction and sentence, the two filed an appeal with the High Court of Kenya in Nairobi. The High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the trial court’s conviction and sentence in its August 2016 decision.
They were so outraged that they filed another appeal with the Court of Appeal in January 2020. They claimed that the charges had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. They asked the Court of Appeal to overturn the August 17, 2016 judgment of Justice G. W. Ngenye-Macharia.
In their decision, Judges M’inoti, Kantai, and Laibuta stated that nothing in the proceedings before the trial court and the High Court suggested that the concurrent findings of fact in the two courts were based on either no evidence or a misinterpretation of evidence.
“We also find nothing to support the conclusion that the trial court and the High Court applied incorrect principles in making the findings on evidence that led to the appellant’s conviction and sentence, as well as the subsequent decision to dismiss their first appeal,” the judgment read in part.
“Having found nothing on record to warrant our interference with the lower courts’ concurrent findings of fact and holding on matters of law, we find that the appellants’ appeal herein on both conviction and sentence fails and, accordingly, the same is hereby dismissed in its entirety.” Ruled the three Judge Bench.
