The Court of Appeal has saved a man sentenced to death on allegations of murdering a woman in 2009 in a pub located in Mukuru kwa Reuben Slums.
In the ruling made by judges, Aske Makhandia, A.K. Murgor, and G.W. Ngenye-Macharia, it was concluded that the man was unfairly judged and sentenced to death.
"Having found that the prosecution failed to link the appellant to the death of the deceased, we shall not delve into other issues that were raised, as well as the propriety of the sentence," the judges ruled.
"In the upshot, we allow the appeal, quash the conviction, and set aside the death sentence imposed on the appellant. We order that he be set free forthwith unless otherwise lawfully held. It is so ordered."
On the day of the incident, the man who worked at a local bar narrated that the deceased came to the establishment and ordered a soda. She later put a substance from her purse into her drink and she started to vomit.
The appellant moved the lady to a safer place where she could get some rest. He added that he closed shop at around 11 pm and headed home with his boss who claimed his wife was away with the house keys.
He reportedly locked the lady inside the bar since she was still intoxicated and it was heavily raining. The man argued it would be unsafe and inhumane to kick her out at that hour.
When the appellant came in the morning, the lady was on the floor unconscious and seemingly dead, he called the police who initiated the investigations.
According to the police reports, the deceased had bruises on her neck indicating strangulation, she was also seemingly assaulted by the culprit(s).
"Externally, she had bruises around the neck and below the chin, the feet were cyanosed meaning there was no supply of oxygen to those areas, neck muscles were bruised, rectum had collapsed, there were bruises around the anus as well as the internal genitalia," read part of the doctor' report.
The appellant was the main suspect in the case and was sentenced to death as he was the last person to be seen with the deceased.
However, the man complained that the prosecution failed to interrogate key witnesses; the pub owner's wife and the night security guard to shed more light on the case.
The Court of Appeal argued that the investigations of the police were shoddy and did not shed any light on the events that took place on a fateful night.
"The conclusion arrived at was merely that the blood type found on the deceased’s underwear was of group A. The question that begs is; whether blood group A belongs to whom or what? This was a most shoddy way of conducting investigations," the judges complained.
