A Nairobi court has handed the death penalty to a pedophiliac father who defiled and killed his own nine-year old daughter at a village in Kiambu county.
According to NairobiNews James Irungu Ndehi, 63, is said to have committed the offence on September 14, 2009
Justice Nicholas Ombija, in his sentence, said that “at the material time, the accused was alone with the deceased in his rural home, the wife having died and two other siblings were away staying with their maternal grandmother, thus leaving the accused and the deceased living alone in one house.”
“Only he could explain how the deceased, who was well during the day and even attended a local church for service, happened to have been strangled and possibly defiled leading to her eventual death,” Justice Ombija said.
EXONERATE HIMSELF
The Judge said that Irungu’s sworn defence “does not appear to discharge the burden put squarely on him under section 111(1) of the evidence act of providing circumstances which would exonerate him from blame.”
In his sworn statement, the accused testified that on September 14, 2009 while at his home in Kamae, Lari, he went to a local church in the company of his daughter and returned home after service.
That at around 9.00pm after supper, his daughter fell ill.
He then went for medicine at the local shopping center where he bought two tablets of Mara Moja and two others whose names he could not remember.
VILLAGE ELDER
The following morning, he woke up at 6 a.m. and tried to wake up his daughter in vain. He then reported the matter to the village elder, who in turn reported to Lari police station,
Mr Irungu was detained at Uplands police station and eventually charged with the murder of his daughter.
A neighbor had told the police they thought the child had been defiled on several occasions before she met her death.
On the fateful morning, police rescued the man after angry villagers had tried to lynch him.