Julius Wambua Musyoki, a middle-aged man who has been serving a life sentence since 2012 for allegedly defiling his own daughter, has a chance at freedom.
This is after the High Court in Machakos allowed for a retrial of the case on Thursday, June 25, over a year after a TV feature unearthed evidence that put his conviction, 8 years ago, to question.
Musyoki's plight was highlighted in March 2019 by Citizen TV journalist Lulu Hassan in a series titled 'Prison Diaries'.
In the feature, Musyoka re-connected with her daughter, Dorcas Mwende, after nearly a decade behind bars, who confessed that her father never defiled her.
She narrated that her mother threatened to kill her if she did not cooperate and tell the story as had been planned.
Musyoki was accused of sexually abusing his daughter at their home in Yatta in 2011.
At the time, the court relied on two medical reports that had been presented and witness statements from Mwende and her sister.
Wambua had filed an appeal after his daughter confessed to framing him but his application was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in May 2019.
He would later go back to court in September 2019 to seek a retrial at the Machakos Law Courts.
His daughters filed their affidavits recanting their previous statements where Mwende had claimed to have been defiled and the sister was a witness.
Watch Mwende's tearful confession below:
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Wambua is listed as the first petitioner, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights as the second while the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) have been listed as first and second respondents respectively.
Justice George Odunga asked the respondents to go through affidavits filed by Wambua's children before the commencement of trial on July 14, 2020.
