Two men were yesterday sentenced to life in prison after a Mombasa court found them guilty of gang-raping, and attempting to murder a 31-year-old woman by tying her at the Kibarani Railway track in Mombasa county.
Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Vincent Adet in his judgment said that the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt against Stephen Otieno Okalu and Stephen Mzee Thomas alias Kirenje.
“From the foregoing, I do hereby find that the prosecution has proved its case on both counts beyond reasonable doubt. The accused persons are therefore convicted for the offence of attempted murder and gang rape contrary to section 220(a) of the Penal Code and section 10 of the Sexual Offences Act respectively,” he said.
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Adet ordered that each of the accused persons serve life imprisonment.
"In respect of Count One involving attempted murder, each of the accused persons shall serve life imprisonment, and in respect of Count Two involving gang rape, each shall serve life imprisonment as well," he said.
Adet continued to inform the accused persons that in reaching his decision, he had considered the victim's impact statement who, in her testimony informed the court that the injury she suffered was actually permanent and that her situation was irreversible following the amputation of her legs.
"I have considered the options as presented in the Sexual Offences Act section( 10) that provides for a sentence of not less than 15 years but which may be enhanced to life imprisonment and in the circumstances, l adopt the latter," Adet said.
He noted that according to evidence tabled in his court, the act of putting the victim on the railway line and having tied her to the extent that she could not move, was itself sickening and that the intention was to have her crushed to death by the train, which is confirmed by her crushed legs.
Adet in his judgment noted that five prosecution witnesses positively identified the two suspects as those who were seen escorting the victim from a funeral which she had earlier attended. She knew both of the suspects since they had been brought up together since childhood with the first suspect. The second accused person, Stephen Mzee Thomas, had a sexual relationship with the victim and at the time of the incident, he claimed to have fathered a child with her.
“On February 3, 2017, while the victim was attending a funeral at Kibarani at around 11:00 pm, she spotted both the suspects at the funeral and as she proceeded to the railway line, she was held from behind by her ex-lover who closed her mouth and assaulted her. She sustained injuries as a result of the struggle and a stab from a weapon before they raped her in turns and when they finished they took her to the railway line and tied her there,” the magistrate's judgment read.
“They tied her on the railway line and abandoned her there. A train approached and overran her on the legs,” Adet noted.
Adet further noted that according to Dr Samwel Ngugi of the Agakhan hospital, the patient had lost both her two legs after she was crushed above the knee and they had to be amputated.
The court noted that any person who attempts to unlawfully cause the death of another is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for life.
In mitigation, the two suspects asked the court for leniency.
