An angry crowd killed a clergyman in Homa Bay County for allegedly stealing a gambling machine.
But before he died under a hail of stones and machetes, the Roho Mshanda Church preacher, identified as Calvince Otieno Onguro, 31, cried out he was not a thief and that he had taken away the machine to save the locals from wasting money on gambling.
Mr Onguro was killed by an angry mob at Kodiera trading centre in Ndhiwa sub-county in an incident that has shocked the village. Police are investigating whether he had really stolen the machine or was a victim of his own concern for the village.
County Police Commander John Omusanga confirmed the Saturday night incident, saying investigations had been launched.
“Many people including myself have lost a lot of money through this machine. My intention is to rescue people of this village by preventing any further use of the machine,” villagers quoted Onguro as saying.
RAISED ALARM
He told the locals not to confuse his intention with stealing. “Nobody should think I was stealing this gadget but I am doing this for the well-being of our people,” he added.
The cleric is said to have switched off the lights at the trading centre before taking the machine away from where it was installed. He then locked most of the residential houses at the centre from outside to stop residents from coming out of their houses.
But some residents raised an alarm before a group of young men who had been using the machine visited the scene and launched a search.
“On realising they were catching up with him, he came out of his hiding, a nearby sugar plantation, and tried to run into a nearby cave but the youths had spotted him,” said a witness, Jacob Mboya.
They forced him out of the cave and set on him with kicks, blows, stones and pangas. His pleas for forgiveness fell on deaf ears.
He defended his actions, saying he was only concerned by the economic losses the machine had caused to the locals, hence his intention to completely discard it.
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