Court sentences two students to hang for killing taxi driver

Two men have been sentenced to death by a court after being found guilty of a violent robbery.

The two who were high school students when they committed the offence three years ago, had denied the charges of robbing and killing a taxi-driver.

Bashir Ibrahim and Ibrahim Abdullahi were students at Fanaka and Nakate secondary schools respectively when they were arrested and charged with the murder of Richard Simiren Kumomoru, at Total Area in Narok  on the night March 14 and 15, 2016, jointly with others.

They denied the charge when they appeared before Chief Magistrate Ms. Wilbroda Juma.

The court heard that they violently robbed Kumomoru, a taxi-driver of a motor vehicle valued at Sh1.2. Million property of Yiapan Edgar Karsis.

The duo were also accused of robbing him of one Samsung galaxy mobile phone valued at Sh15, 000 and at the time of the robbery and killed Richard Simiren Kumomoru.

The court heard that police with the help of the car-tracking system waylaid the car of the deceased taxi man at Mwariki area in Nakuru along the Nakuru-Nairobi highway and arrested five suspects.

Two among them were later released for lack of sufficient evidence.

 Another accomplice in the case who was 17 and a student at Fanaka Secondary School when the offence was committed was in June 2016 sentenced to serve three years in a correctional institution after he pleaded guilty to charges.    

They are alleged to have posed as customers and hired the taxi-driver to take them to an unknown destination but when he failed to come home or call his family, the family members reported the matter to Narok Police Station where a search for the missing taxi-driver began. 

  In mitigation, the town young men through their lawyer  pleaded for leniency saying they regret their actions and needed a chance to reform as young persons.

They asked the court to consider the fact that they were students at the time of committing the offence and were aspiring to continue with their education.

The prosecution on its part maintained that the offence was serious and the deceased was murdered in the most inhuman manner and justice needed to be served. It called for a stiff penalty to act as a lesson to others with like mind.

 In her judgment, the magistrate said she noted the mitigation but she agreed with the prosecution that justice had to be served for the family that lost a loved one in such an inhuman manner. She gave the accused persons 14 days to appeal.

The magistrate said she exercised her judicial powers as enshrined in the law in sentencing the accused persons to death sentence.