Tussle at night sends man to cool heels in jail for life

Kenya: When Anthony Mugo left his brother's pre-wedding ceremony on November 14, 1998, he was in such high spirits that he could not get home without having his favourite tipple at a local bar.

He detoured to Starehe Bar, quickly emptied three bottles of frothy beer and soldiered home an extremely happy man. He left the bar at around 9.30pm, and took the downhill road leading to his home in Rukuriri, Embu County.

Little did Mugo know that he would not only have to fight fiercely for his life against a bloodthirsty gang of four, but he would not make it home that night.

Mugo was going down the hill when two men suddenly walked swiftly past him, before taking an about-turn 50 metres ahead.

They were people he knew, and he was thus shocked when they suddenly grabbed him and started rummaging through his  pockets.

When he asked the assailants why they were doing that, one of them whom he identified by name as Gitonga gave him an electric slap on the face.

His accomplice, identified as Muthamia wrestled Mugo to the ground and choked him with his massive elbow – an assault which rejuvenated Mugo's adrenaline, causing him to fight back.

The scuffle that followed between Mugo and the two thugs could easily have passed for a typical scene from a professional wrestling match had two other thugs not joined in.

"I grabbed Muthamia by the forehead and scratched his face hard almost removing his eye in the process," Mugo, recounted 13-years later through central Director of Public Prosecutions Job Kaigai at the Nyeri Court of Appeal.

Mugo recounted that Muthamia let go after the scratch: "But I now faced Gitonga eye-to-eye. I bit his ear, before he gave me a blow on the lower lip of my mouth."

But as he was regaining his balance to return the punch, two more thugs emerged from the bushes; one of them wielding a metal bar with which he hit Mugo on the back of his head. He fell down with a slump.

He would wake up many hours later in a nearby maize plantation where the assailants dumped him after stealing his socks, shoes, ID and ATM cards and Sh2,850.

The case was heard by a magistrate and five judges!

The key suspect brought to book by the police was a man identified as Alvan Gitonga who is now cooling his heels in prison.

He was sentenced to death by an Embu Magistrate's Court, and the verdict was upheld by two High Court judges and later a three judge bench sitting at the Nyeri Court of Appeal last week.