Youths arrested following killing of 29 people in 2009 deny Mungiki link, appeal sentence

The youth were arrested at the height of killings by vigilantes in Nyeri.

KENYA: Twenty three youths who were arrested on suspicion of being Mungiki members during the infamous Gathaithi massacre want the court to free them. Twenty nine people were hacked to death at Gathaithi.

They told the Nyeri High Court Thursday that they were not members of the illegal sect. They pleaded their innocence when they appeared before Justice John Mativo to appeal the seven-year sentences imposed by the lower court.

The court was told that the youths were arrested on April 20, 2009 aboard a matatu headed towards Karatina, just days after 29 people were killed by members of the Mungiki sect.

The appellants argued that they were picked up at different places across the county while they went about their business and not aboard a matatu as the prosecution told the court.

Police officers said they intercepted the group at a road block in Giagatika and recovered an assortment of crude weapons such as pangas, sickles and axes. However, their lawyer, Peter Muthoni, argued that his clients' defence had not been considered and that the police had not supplied the court with enough evidence to warrant a conviction. He wants the court to quash their conviction and set aside the sentences.

Moreover, he submitted that the prosecution was flawed and did not determine that his clients had the common intention of committing any crime.

"It was the duty of the police to place my clients at the scene of the crime - they did not do that", he said.

He contended that the police did not state clearly who were the owners of the recovered weapons and questioned the rationale the officers had used to reach the conclusion that the pangas and axes were not farm implements but weapons.

State Counsel Hilda Jebet said that the prosecution sufficiently provided that each of the appellants was arrested with their own weapons.

"The trial court considered their defence and termed them as mere denials, which did not challenge the evidence of the prosecution witnesses", she told Mativo.

However, Muthoni also told the court that it was possible his clients were the collateral as the state took measures to tame the rising wave of the Mungiki sect.

"There was public fear, hue and cry after the massacre of 29 people thus the police could have been under pressure to bring those who were responsible for the murders to book", he said.

He told the court that the tension had since calmed down his clients should be released.

In a rejoinder, the State argued that the police officers had no reason to frame the appellants for a crime they did not commit. They were handed bond as their appeal was being determined.