State v Michael Onyango Awich [2022] KEHC 2411 (KLR)

REPUBLIC OF KENYA

IN THE HIGH COURT OF KENYA

AT SIAYA

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 12 OF 2020[MURDER]

STATE………………………………………………………..…..PROSECUTION

VERSUS

MICHAEL ONYANGO AWICH……………………….……………ACCUSED

SENTENCE

1. On 18/1/2022, this court delivered judgment in this case making a finding of guilt of the accused person Michael Onyango Awich for the Murder of the deceased Charles Oduor Awich.

2. The court then reserved sentence to be imposed after mitigation and a Presentence report which has been filed by the Probation Officer.

3. I have considered the mitigation by the accused and his counsel.  The accused is a first offender as no criminal records have been availed to this court. He is said to be remorseful and has no means of income.

4. The Probation Officer in his report filed in court via email states that the accused had been committing offences in Busia where he resided for long. However, no such evidence is availed to this court. The accused is aged 36 years old and was married to 3 wives one after another all of whom have left him due to what is said to be domestic violence meted on them. H estates that the whereabouts of his children are unknown.

5. The accused has 6 children who live with their respective mothers. He is said to be poorly behaved in the community and had a bad relationship with his close family members. He is said to be an introvert and violent.  The family and local community do not want to see him and bay for his blood should he return home.  He is therefore not suitable for immediate return.

6. The victim’s family of a widow and her 2 young sons are said to be struggling to meet ends as the children are in secondary school and the widow is unemployed.

7. The deceased was according to the probation officer, pastor and a humble likeable person. The deceased and accused were siblings and the accused hatched a plot to eliminate his brother due to land issue, from the evidence adduced on record.

8. The accused had no mercy for his own brother. He eliminated him by butchering him, slicing him, cutting his body into pieces, and stuffing it into bags and throwing it into the river. It is fortunate that the body was found before it landed into Lake Victoria otherwise it would be another story of a missing person in perpetuity.  It was horrifying and traumatizing to see the photographs of the deceased’s body.

9. The deceased did not deserve to die such painful horrifying death. The accused does not deserve any mercy not even from God himself as he does not acknowledge what he did to his brother.  The accused is the Cain that we read in the Bible. Yet he pretends to be innocent and that he had nothing to do with the death of the deceased.

10. Punishment for murder under section 204 of the Penal Code is death. Taking into account the mitigation which show no remorse, at all and the circumstances under which the deceased was kidnapped and butchered to death like a wild animal and thrown into the river to rot, and the objectives of Sentencing as reiterated in the Francis Muruatetu & Another Vs Republic [2017]eKLR, I find that the only suitable sentence to impose on the accused herein Michael Onyango Awich is life imprisonment, to keep him away from the society where he does not value lives. Accordingly, the convict Michael Onyango Awich is hereby sentenced to serve Life Imprisonment for the murder of Charles Oduor Awich. I so order.

11. Right of Appeal 14 days explained.

Dated, signed and Delivered at Siaya this 15th Day of February, 2022

R.E. ABURILI

JUDGE