Innocent man spends 6 years in prison over Sh20 car ride

James Chege leaves Nairobi West Prison on Wednesday after the High Court found that he was wrongfully convicted of robbery with violence.  [PHOTO: COLLINS KWEYU/STANDARD]

It has been six years since James Chege saw the sun set outside the prison grills with heavily armed warders. Today, the young man, now 27 years old, will be enjoying his freedom again after being released by the High Court, which found him innocent of robbery with violence charges and being in possession of stolen property.

At 6pm, a signal to release him is sent from the High Court to the officer in charge of Nairobi West Prison and Chege appears within a short while with a small bundle of belongings in a blue paper bag. He is calm but at the same time dazzled by the relief of leaving prison without an officer or handcuffs, for the first time since 2008.

“Freedom is a good thing until it is taken away from you, especially when  you know you are innocent but no one believes you,” this is the first thing that Chege says. He had been sentenced to 14 years in jail without an option of fine for allegedly robbing Samuel Kihumba goods worth Sh824,000, including a car, using an AK47 rifle. However, High Court judges Mbogholi Msagha and Lydia Achode on Tuesday overturned the decision of the lower court citing lack of evidence linking him to the act; this  after he had already served six years of his sentence.

Justices Msagha and Achode ruled that he was an innocent passenger in the motor vehicle that had allegedly been stolen.

Not charged

The judgment follows the State counsel’s contention that Chege, who had appealed the decision by Senior Resident Magistrate E C Cherono, had been wrongly charged as he was just a passenger in the motor vehicle.

The lawyer had notified the court that the driver of the same car was never charged but instead Chege and the owner of the vehicle were placed in the dock.

“Having perused the lower court’s record, grounds of appeal and submissions, we are satisfied that the State counsel was right to concede the appeal. We have found this appeal is meritorious. We therefore quash the conviction and set aside the sentence imposed on the appellant and order that he be hereby set at liberty forthwith unless otherwise lawfully held,” the judges ruled.

The Standard had traced Chege at Kamiti Maximum Prison where he had been serving his sentence though we finally found him at Nairobi West. He tells The Standard that he had been at Kamiti from July 2008 to 2011 when he was transferred to Naivasha Maximum Prison.

He was later returned to Kamiti until February this year. He says he was among the first people to serve long sentences at the Nairobi West facility. Remembering the events that led to his tragic turn, he says in May 23, 2008, the first born of six siblings, woke up early to head for work at Kiambu town. On that day, while waiting for a matatu, a taxi driver offered to ferry him and two ladies to the town. The ladies alighted at Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology.

A few metres from the college, the vehicle was intercepted by a police car and they were ordered to accompany them to Muthaiga Police Station and later to Gigiri.

“The driver had told the two police officers that I was his passenger but they told him that I should also accompany them to assist in investigations about the car. I was to pay him Sh20 as he had charged. Accepting the ride and that little amount of money is what took me to a legal pit that was difficult to comprehend and pull myself out of,” he says, adding that he did not know the driver of the car.

The court noted that the victims of the robbery never identified him as the culprit and that Chege’s co-accused, Oliver Mburu, had also been released on similar grounds last year.

In his defense, Chege had stated he was a fare-paying passenger in the taxi and as such he was not involved in any crime.

He tells us that his hopes of being a mobile phone technician were cut short after his mother died in 2008. His father too had passed away in 2003, leaving him to fend for his brothers and sisters. He had started a phone repair shop but opted to continue with his parents’ curio shop.

At the same time, he says, he ran a car wash where he was headed at the time of his arrest. “Life in prison had not been rosy knowing that I had been left with the responsibility of my siblings. My youngest sister is now in college and I am happy that I will re-unite with them,” he says.

Sue state

During his years of confinement, he took First Aid and computer lessons though he hopes to start dairy farming. “I want to be self-employed,” he says, adding that the prison officers had become his friends.

In the lower court proceedings seen by The Standard, none of the witnesses brought by the prosecutor Chief Inspector Mutie had identified Chege and his co-accused as the suspects. Prosecution witness 2 and 5, who were the victims of the robbery, had told the court they had not seen the two during the act.

The charge sheet read that on 15 May, 2008 at Kihara village in Nairobi area, jointly with others before the court while armed with a dangerous weapon they robbed Kihumba Sh5,000, a motor vehicle worth Sh800,000, mobile phone and a Sony DVD. Chege’s lawyer, Kanyi Gakuya, had managed to get him off the hook after patiently arguing his case on appeal from 2009 until he was acquitted. Asked if he would sue the State for wrongful detention, Chege says he would consult with his lawyer.