A High Court in Siaya has sentenced two men accused of killing a Boda Boda rider over a girlfriend controversy to life imprisonment.

Justice Roselyne Aburili ruled that the two, Benjamin Odhiambo and Vincent Owuor, had murdered the deceased on the night of November 30, 2018, and staged the incident as an accident.

“This court, therefore, finds you guilty of murder contrary to section 203 as read with section 204 of the penal code,” Justice Aburili ruled.

Court documents indicate that the duo was sentenced on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, after years in the corridors of justice.

A tweet by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) six days after sentencing revealed that on the night he met his death, the deceased was in the company of his girlfriend at Bungasi Trading Centre.

However, while shedding more light on the case, the DCI said that the couple was at a popular nightclub when they disagreed a few hours past midnight and the woman took off.

“Akinyi walked out of the bar and boarded a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck that had been parked outside and took off.

The DCI thread on Twitter adds that the deceased and his brother jumped on the motorcycle and started trailing the pick-up.

“A few metres from Sigomere Trading Centre, the brothers unsuccessfully attempted to flag down the vehicle. The driver had no intentions of stopping the vehicle but instead, he hit the motorcycle from the back,” DCI reports indicate.

The investigators say that the pillion passenger was tossed to a nearby ditch while the deceased lay on the road. Sleuths say an eyewitness told investigators that one of the accused (the co-driver of the vehicle) alighted, surveilled the two bodies and when he realised that one was still alive, he did the unthinkable.

The witness said that he positioned the deceased along the tracks of the truck after which he instructed his accomplice to reverse, running over the deceased several times and killing him.

All this, while the deceased’s brother played dead in a ditch he fell into when the vehicle hit them.

Minutes later, police officers in the area arrived at the scene, processed it and homicide detectives took over after establishing that the accident appeared choreographed.

Investigations began and the suspects were arrested en route to Nairobi then later arraigned.