Sentencing adjourned for lawyer Willie Kimani's killers
Suspects in the murder of lawyer Willie Kimani when they appeared in court on December 16, 2022.
The High Court on Friday pushed the sentencing of four convicts in the murder case of lawyer Willie Kimani to February 3, 2023.
Police officers, Stephen Cheburet, Fredrick Leliman and Sylvia Wanjiku were convicted alongside police informer Peter Ngugi on July 22.
Justice Jessie Lessit, now a judge of the Court of Appeal, found them guilty of killing rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri on June 23, 2016.
The bodies of the three men were found stashed in gunny bags in Ol Donyo Sabuk, Machakos County, on July 1, 2016.
They had been dumped in River Athi and were found more than a week after the men were reported missing.
When delivering her verdict, Justice Lessit said the accused persons had a common intention.
“I am satisfied that the prosecution established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused were principal offenders and acted in one common intention to commit the offences as charged,” she said while finding the accused guilty of murder.
The judge added that the evidence on analysis of the officers’ mobile phones and communication gadgets given by the National Police Service locked them at the scene of the killing in Mlolongo.
It also showed their movement when the bodies were dumped in Ol Donyo Sabuk, more than 100 kilometres from Mlolongo.
“The prosecution relied on technological and forensic evidence, confessions and phone call data from Safaricom and Airtel,” the judge said.
“The call sites were captured in the data, handset history, geographical locations and movement.”
Kimani was defending Mwenda who had accused Leliman of shooting him for no apparent reason in 2015.
Justice Lessit, who concluded the case on February 11, 2022 said it was the longest in her career.
Some 72 prosecution and defence witnesses were called.
There were more than 7,200 pages of hand written proceedings.
