A man who was jailed for life after being accused of robbery with violence has found reprieve after the court of appeal set him free.
The court found that the accused, Stanley Njeru Kira who had already served 10 years in prison was wrongly arrested after the public accused him of being an accomplice in a robbing incident that occurred in Naivasha.
In the incident that occurred in 2010, Njeru was accused of robbing a taxi driver the taxi a motor vehicle Nissan Sunny station Wagon worth Ksh500,000 and Ksh6,500.
At the time, the victim told police that he was heading to an IDP camp in the company of two men who had hired him to help them pick a woman in the area. However, when they got there the woman was nowhere to be seen.
At that point, a man claiming to be Njeru volunteered to help them find the woman aforementioned. About 4 kilometres later, the man they had allowed into the car strangled the driver with a rope ordering him to stop the car.
Later during the day, he raised an alarm to members of the public making the three men scamper for safety after the angry mob headed towards the car.
Njeru got arrested by the mob in the process as he was moving in the area.
While appearing before justices Fatma Sichale, Lydia Achode and Weldon Korir the court found that the witness who arrested Njeru did not see him leaving the vehicle.
"In the case before us, Kiragu was arrested after the perpetrators abandoned the subject vehicle and fled on foot. He was then brought to the complainant for identification after being roughed up by the public," the court said.
"This is important because the complainant did not specify how long he had Kiragu in view at the pick-up point before he entered the car and sat at the back where the complainant could no longer see him," the court added.
The accused has however insisted that he was not involved in the robbery.
