Lawyers fault Muiruri murder case ruling

By Kenfrey Kiberenge

Lawyers holding brief for one of the convicts in the murder case of a former Member of Parliament’s son have termed the ruling faulty.

Businessman Alex Chepkonga, the second accused, was last Wednesday sentenced to hang alongside ex-Police Inspector Dickson Munene, by High Court Judge Mohammed Warsame. He was found guilty of murdering James Ng’ang’a Muiruri, son of former Gatundu North MP Patrick Muiruri, on January 24, 2009.

But lawyers at Murgor and Murgor Advocates, who plan to appeal the ruling, say it was defective, basing their arguments on the chronology of events on the fateful night as well as contradictory evidence from key prosecution witnesses.

Chepkonga and Munene at Milimani Courts during the hearing. Picture: Ann Kamoni/Standard

The two prosecution witnesses were Ng’ang’a’s younger brother John Gachera and Jedida Ahawo, their neighbour. After the scuffle at Crooked Q Club in Westlands, Gachera and Ng’ang’a drove together while Ahawo was in her car behind them and therefore witnessed the whole incident.

But according to Philip Murgor, while the two claimed that it was Chepkonga’s car that had blocked them from the front, Munene admitted it was him who blocked the car from the front, which was upheld by the judge.

"The only case the prosecution had against Chepkonga was that he had blocked the deceased’s car to allow Munene to finish him. But that argument was defeated when Munene admitted that it was him who had blocked the vehicle so that he could arrest the deceased... Chepkong’a’s case should have ended there," argued lawyer Jackie Kibogy.

In his first statement recorded at Parklands Police Station hours after the shooting, Gachera said the car he was driving Ng’ang’a in was blocked by a policeman who emerged wielding handcuffs and pointing a pistol.

He wrote: "That is when I saw the man who was driving the vehicle which had parked in front of us walking towards my brother. He removed handcuffs and tried to handcuff my brother who resisted being handcuffed."

But in a subsequent statement recorded at the Criminal Investigations Department four days later, Gachera says a Mercedes Benz blocked the car that Chepkonga drove on the fateful night.

Another eyewitness, Eluid Kimani Mwangi, also told the police in statement that Gachera’s vehicle was blocked by a Mercedes Benz. But in his ruling Justice Warsame said the vehicle that blocked Gachera’s car was Munene’s and not the Mercedes Benz as claimed by eyewitnesses. Murgor also raised issue with Mwangi’s evidence, noting that in the initial statements, both Gachera and Ahawo did not mention him, yet his name cropped up in subsequent statements.

Discrepancies

In the first statement, Gachera says he was assisted to lift his late brother from the ground into the car by Ahawo and later drove him to MP Shah Hospital, which was confirmed by the latter in her first statement.

However, in the subsequent statements, they said they were assisted by a well-wisher to take Ng’ang’a to hospital.

In explaining the discrepancies in their statements on which car blocked them from the front and if there was a third person, Gachera and Ahawo say their first statements were not completely factual as they had recorded them immediately after the shooting which had left them traumatised. Justice Warsame, in his ruling, said he found their statements consistent.

In his statement recorded two months after the incidence, Mwangi says he is a flower hawker near the scene of crime and witnessed the whole incident and that he assisted take the deceased to hospital. But in his submissions before the court, Murgor claimed that the witness had been ‘manufactured’ hence the change of statements.

Murgor took a swipe at Warsame’s ruling, saying most of it pointed at an acquittal for the second accused but immediately deviated without giving solid reasons.

Warsame ruled that Munene had blocked Ng’ang’a’s car from the front and Chepkonga blocked them at the back.

But Murgor raised a question of logic since a bouncer at the club had testified that he had restrained Chepkonga for five minutes after Ng’ang’a’s group had taken off.

"If learned judge you have agreed that from the club to the crime scene it takes 20 seconds, since Chepkonga was restrained for five minutes by the bouncers on the ground floor, how could he have blocked them from behind yet they had two vehicles?" posed Murgor.

In his defence, Chepkonga said he pursued them, and found the three cars parked: he then parked next to Munene’s vehicle.

But before he could disembark, he heard gunshots and promptly reversed and drove home.