Man accused of shooting K'Osewe owner wants case reopened

A businessman charged with attempting to kill city hotelier William Osewe on Thursday sought time to adduce more evidence before a verdict is rendered.

The suspect, Tom Oywa Mboya,  was scheduled to be convicted and sentenced Thursday before his lawyer made the surprise application.

The defence team urged the trial magistrate, Martha Mutukua, to allow the suspect give more evidence in the case which is at its tail end.

The defence team said the additional testimony will shed more light on the case and enable the court to do justice to all the parties.

"The fact that we are seeking to adduce fresh testimony does not mean we are afraid of taking the judgement,” the defence team said.

In seeking to give more evidence,  the accused said the new testimony will bring out the whole picture of the sequence of events preceding the shooting incident.

But the prosecuting counsel Anderson Gikunda opposed the move saying once a case is closed it cannot be reopened.

"There must be an end to a trial. The fresh application by the accused is meant to delay justice,” Mr Gikunda.

He added the accused wants to fill in the yawning gaps in his defence after sensing danger that things have not augured well with him.

In his defence, Mr Mboya attempted to exonerate himself from blame saying his actions were for self-defence since the complaint is always armed. 

He pressed for his acquittal and urged Ms Mutuku to clear him.

But Mr Gikunda put a spirited fight by urging the court to convict the accused.

Gikunda asked the court to find the accused guilty of attempted murder saying. “It’s by luck that Osewe is alive today.”

In 2019, Mboya defended himself saying that Osewe had threatened to chop off his manhood and kill him if he didn’t stop sleeping with his wife.

Mboya admitted to shooting the restauranter in self-defence.

He told Ms Mutuku that he aimed his gun at Osewe’s hands because he wanted to disarm him.

“The complainant, in this case, had previously said that I had slept with his wife and he was going to cut my manhood if I didn't stop. He cocked his gun twice but could not shoot and my aim was to shoot his hands,” Mboya told the court.

Osewe, the owner of the popular Ranalo or K'osewe Foods along Kimathi Street, Nairobi, was shot on December 1, 2016.

Mboya is accused of trying to kill Osewe and another man, Wilfred Ombunya Tembula.

He has denied the charges of attempted murder in 2017 and is out on a cash bail of Sh300,000

“He is a loud person and he attracts the public. I tried to walk away from him. We moved to an area near a river as he followed me. I saw Osewe draw his gun, a pistol and cock it twice, so I felt unsafe and decided to draw mine,” Mboya had said in defence.

There were people around them who wanted to know why they were fighting.

“If you cock gun twice and try to trigger it does not shoot, it jams, that's what I was taught by the GSU,” he told the court.

Mboya said he shot once at Osewe's hand and shot again twice in the air.

The ruling on whether to allow a plea will be delivered on September 27.

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