Kenyan woman to hang over husband’s death

A woman who had been jailed for hiring hitmen to kill her husband was yesterday sentenced to hang.

Janet Karamana, 56, sobbed uncontrollably as the judgment was read at the Court of Appeal. She had appealed a 30-year-sentence handed by the High Court for a crime that she maimed her husband, Moses Gituma, and eventually killed him.

Karamana had been found guilty of planning the October 23, 2009, attack that left Gituma, a former senior officer at the Central Bank of Kenya, in a vegetative state until he died on March 2, 2010.

High Court Judge Nicholas Ombija convicted six people in the case, but the Court of Appeal released three of them and sent the other three to the gallows.

Justices GBM Kariuki, Philomena Mwilu and Fatuma Sichale ruled that the three were the main perpetrators of the crime.

Those to face death are Karamana, Clement Munyao and Anthony Mati, whereas Andrew Muuo, Evans Obangi and Peter Maina were given back their freedom because the evidence could not sustain a murder conviction.

State prosecutor Moses Omirera had argued that the accused did not deserve mercy because they had not only planned the killing, but gone into the house of the deceased in Nairobi’s Garden Estate at 8.30pm and waited for him until 2am. They then beat him up until he lost consciousness.

“From the evidence on record, we are satisfied that the first appellant (Karamana) played a major role in the attack. The evidence points irresistibly to her leading the attackers to her house, to them acting in concert to maim the deceased and her later aiding their escape,” the appellate judges ruled yesterday.

On the fateful night, the court was told, Karamana, who operated a salon near her home, turned down the offer of a lift from a neighbour and customer on the pretext that she was waiting for a carpenter to fix a leaking roof.

She walked home using a footpath and sneaked into the compound with the four attackers, avoiding the security guards at the main gate. The court was told she was the one who knocked on the door, which was opened by the househelp.

The four men immediately herded the family—Karamana, two children (a boy and a girl then aged seven and nine, respectively) and the househelp— into a toilet and waited for their victim.

One of the attackers ordered the hostages to undress, but Karamana is said to have told him it was too cold so he dropped the demand.

After they had attacked Gituma, the court heard that Karamana was pulled from the room and one of the gang members was overheard telling her that they had completed the job.

Karamana did not raise the alarm, but instead drove the men out of the compound using her husband’s car.

In her defence, the businesswoman told the court that she could not raise alarm because she was afraid that the assailants would harm her.

However, the judges dismissed her explanation, saying her conduct after the attack was suspicious.

According to the evidence, the woman travelled 20 kilometers from her house to report the incident to police.

Multiple injuries

“The first appellant drove to the gate; she never alerted the guards in any manner at all. Even more suspicious is that by her own testimony, it took her two hours to reach a police station in Thika, where she made a report at 3.55am,” the judges noted.

Police investigations indicate that she paid the attackers Sh30,000.

“There is no doubt that the attack on the deceased was meant to cause him injury. There was no evidence that this was a robbery gone bad. There is available evidence that the assailants were so patient that they asked for the deceased and waited for him until 2am,” the judges said.

According to a post-mortem report presented in court during the trial, the deceased suffered multiple internal organ injuries that led to his admission in hospital before he finally succumbed to the injuries. The report showed that the deceased suffered head, mouth and face injuries during the attack.

The two mobile phones taken from the househelp and Karamana on the fateful night helped to track down Munyao and Mati. They sold the phones to buyers who later identified them.