A driver who ran over 7 people and killed them on the spot has been allowed to walk free after serving 8 years in prison.
According to a report by the Daily Nation on Tuesday, April 21, the driver, identified as David Kimani Njuguna was let go after Justice Luka Kimaru faulted a decision by the magistrate's court that his sentences that were to run consecutively for each of the seven victims.
The trial court sentenced him to serve two years in prison for each victim, which would total to 14, or alternatively pay a fine of Ksh100,000 for each of the seven counts of the said offenses for all the victims of the fatal April 27, 2012, accident.
Justice Kimaru, however, found the fines to be harsh and excessive and reconsidered the lower court's ruling.
According to him, even though seven people died in the accident, it was one accident that caused the death, and thus Kimani ought to have been punished on that basis.
“The court is of the view that the fines imposed were indeed harsh and excessive taking into account that it was one accident that led to the death of the deceased persons. The applicant is therefore ordered released from prison and set at liberty forthwith,” Justice Kimaru ruled.
Kimaru also dismissed the fines imposed by the courts and gave Kimani a fine of Ksh200,000 to lowering the Ksh700,000 that was arrived at by the lower court.
The suspect, having posted bail of Ksh200,000 after his arrest, was set free as Kimaru considered his debt with the state settled and was allowed to walk free.
On the day of the accident on April 27, 2012, Kimani was reportedly driving an Isuzu lorry registration number KAA 273P in a manner that was ruled as dangerous to pedestrians and other road users.
It was while at it that he ran over seven passengers who were alighting from a matatu on their way to their daily activities, killing them on the spot, after which he was arrested and charged with dangerous driving in accordance with the Traffic Act.
During his trial, the magistrate's court was convinced that Kimani was indeed guilty and wanted him to serve as an example to other drivers, thereby giving him a maximum sentence.
Come 2019, however, Kimani returned to the corridors of justice arguing that the trial court failed to consider his pre-sentence report which showed that he was indeed remorseful and that he had not intended the accident to happen.
He also argued that as a young man with a family, he could barely afford the amount he had been ordered to pay as fine and pleaded for leniency in court.
