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‘All I need is to have a place to call my home’, says Julius Wambua
While serving a life sentence at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for a crime he had not committed, Julius Wambua Musyoka craved freedom. Then on Thursday, it suddenly happened. After close to a decade behind bars, Mr Musyoka was set free. He was happy to reconnect with his family, including the people who betrayed him.
Then reality hit him: He had nowhere to go. He had no home to go back to. No land. His family is scattered all over.
Today, the 56-year-old man, who once had a stable life is living with his younger brother in Nairobi.
Amid the celebration for his freedom, the thought of homelessness brings bad memories.
“Although I am a free man now, I am forced by circumstances to start my life from the scratch. I lost everything in the nine years I was in jail,” he told the Saturday Nation yesterday. “I am now concerned about getting a place to call home.”
It started eight years ago, in 2012, when he was arrested, arraigned in court, tried and convicted for raping his daughter. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Coached by mother
At Kamiti, saddled with a life sentence, he gave up on life, until his accuser, Dorcas Mwende, arrived one day five years ago, seeking to see him. The girl had a confession to make. At 16, when she testified that he had raped her, she and her siblings had been coached by their mother, Jackline Nzilani, and other relatives to implicate him in an incest case in which Dorcas would play the victim.
The court heard that Ms Nzilani banked on the case to settle scores after she fell out with Mr Musyoka over a parcel of land. Ms Mwende’s testimony, that of her mother and two conflicting medical reports produced at a Kithimani magistrate’s court, earned Mr Musyoka a conviction.
He would lose his land, and his home. But, years later, haunted by the lies, Ms Mwende traced her father to Kamiti Prison and, amid sobs, pleaded with authorities to allow her to stay with him for as long as he stayed there as she had no place to call home after the mother became hostile to her.
Opened doors
The brief father-daughter meeting that started on a tense note, opened doors for more hearty and regular meetings. That marked the onset of a long journey that culminated in Mr Musyoka walking to his freedom on Thursday, after the High Court in Machakos quashed the jail sentence handed to him by the magistrate’s court on January 24, 2012, after a successful appeal for a retrial.
The judge said he was satisfied with the new compelling evidence brought before his court.
“Justice must be conducted in a manner that is fair. A prosecution witness testified on oath that evidence was extracted through coercion by her mother and the police to pave way for their mother to access the property. Injustice is glaring and smiling in defiance of justice,” he said on Wednesday as he directed the matter be tried afresh. He freed Mr Wambua on Sh30,000 cash bail.
This means Mr Wambua, Ms Nzilani and Dorcas are expected back in the Kithimani magistrate’s court on Monday.
“There was light at the end of the tunnel when Dorcas recanted her testimony,” Mr Wambua said yesterday, while recounting the journey to the successful appeal for retrial during an interview with the Saturday Nation at a Nairobi estate, where one of his brothers lives.
He says he has forgiven those who conspired to put him to jail.
“I pray that God forgives them as well.”
