Nakuru cousins to hang for Sh300 robbery with violence

Two cousins who violently robbed an armed police officer of Sh300 will face the death penalty after the High Court dismissed their appeal.

The Magistrates’ Court had sentenced Erick Njure and Patrick Muchoki to hang in 2011 for robbery with violence. They were convicted of robbing Police Constable Kenneth Malakwen on October 27, 2011.

The court heard that the two men, armed with clubs, accosted Mr Malakwen, who was then attached to Parliament Police Station, on his way back to a hotel in Nakuru where he was spending the night.

They robbed him of Sh300 and a Ceska pistol that was loaded with 15 bullets.

The two were arrested a year later, on July 6, 2012, when they tried to steal from a shop in Karatina using the same pistol.

When the robbery failed, they hid in a house but were arrested after an informer tipped the police.

The court heard that the pistol serial number was circulated to police stations to identify who it had been assigned to.

Mr Njure, according to the testimony given in court, had told police officers that the firearm belonged to Mr Muchoki who had obtained it from Nakuru.

The two denied the charges brought against them.

Njure told the court that on the day of the second robbery, he was working at the home of one Wangeci and that Muchoki joined him the following morning to help.

The court heard that police officers stormed their house, beat them up and took them to Karatina Police Station where they were allegedly compelled to sign some documents.

 BEATEN UP

Njure’s testimony was that he declined to sign and was driven to somewhere near a river in Sagana, where he was strangled into submission.

Muchoki said he was also beaten up until he put his signature on the papers given by the officers.

But Justice Jairus Ngaah found the State had proved its case against the two and that the police officer was robbed violently by the two.

“In the complainant’s case, he was attacked by a group of people who were armed with crude weapons; it is clear that at least two of the three strands of this offence, any of which is sufficient to prove it, were established. Here, I agree with the learned magistrate that the offence of robbery with violence was proved to the required standard,” the judge ruled.

“Based on this doctrine of recent possession, the appellants were properly convicted of the offence of robbery with violence,” he added.

The judge said although the pistol was recovered eight months after the robbery, the two were unable to explain how they had acquired it.

“It followed that the burden fell upon the appellants to give a reasonable explanation as to how they came into possession of the gun, failure to which the trial court was justified in the ruling,” he said.