A Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) serviceman testified against his deceased father in a murder trial at the High Court in Meru.
According to a report by the Daily Nation on Thursday, March 5, Alfred Kinyua told the court that his father, Stanley Murea Ntokirari, slashed to death Francis Mithika Ntokirari (his elder brother), on the night of February 7, 2014.
According to the soldier, his father slashed Mithika in a fit of rage over a protracted tea farm row in Kirindine Village, Meru County.
He told the court that the two brothers had never been in good terms and Mithika had, prior to his murder, attacked the soldier's mother once in a row over the same tea plantation.
“I want to tell the court that my father and Francis Mithika had been having constant quarrels. Mithika had in 2002 attacked and slashed my mother over a tea plantation.
“I learned from an early age that the brothers, who are not from the same mother, were not friends. The families never visited one another,” he was quoted.
Speaking in court, the soldier pleaded for the release of Titus Kimathi who is the only remaining suspect after Murea passed on in February 2019, when the trial was in progress.
He notified the court that Kimathi had been assigned to guard miraa on the fateful night and there was no way he could have been at the scene of the crime.
He further revealed that Kimathi learned of the murder through him since he was away when the incident took place.
On cross-examination by State Counsel Vincent Maina, Kinyua told the court that he was attending evening classes at the nearby Kirindine Secondary School when he encountered a vehicle ferrying the deceased to the hospital in critical condition.
The police, however allegedly arrested him alongside his other brother before his release after teachers and students in school corroborated his alibi.
"My uncle wanted to frame us. He wanted us arrested so that he could take the land. Our chief and village elders know about the matter and can testify to it. I pray that the court releases my brother since he is innocent," stated Kinyua.
