Footballer earns sweet freedom; rugby players get 15 years for rape

Rugby players Alex Olaba and Frank Wanyama in the dock at Milimani Court, Nairobi, where they were sentenced to 15 years in jail each for gang-rape. [George Njunge / Standard]

As the day set on Friday, jail doors swung open to usher Kenya’s sportsmen in and out.

While the court in Kiambu was releasing former Mathare United player Tedium Roger Leleni after 19 years behind bars, a Nairobi Court was locking in Kenya rugby players Frank Wanyama and Alex Olaba for 15 years.

The footballer had been in for robbery with violence, in which he had initially been slapped with a death sentence. On the other hand, the rugby players will be cooling their heels in jail after being convicted of raping a musician.

When Milimani Court Magistrate Martha Mutuku was handing the sentence, Wanyama and Olaba were forlorn, crestfallen.

The sparkle that was in Wanyama’s eyes when he was a free man disappeared -- he was a cheerless, devastated and broken to the core.

The magistrate observed that although the current verdicts by High Court have been defying mandatory minimum sentence for gang rape - 15 years set by the Sexual Offences Act, for lesser sentences, she would still stick with the Act.

The magistrate said what Wanyama, 23, and Olaba, 22, had left a devastating mark on the 25-year-old woman.

“While this appears to be the emerging jurisprudence, the Act still stands as the law. I find that custodial sentence is appropriate in this case. I impose a minimum sentence of 15 years to the first accused (Wanyama) and the second accused (Olaba),” ruled Magistrate Mutuku.

Immediately the verdict was handed, Wanyama and Olaba’s club Kenya Harlequin released a statement saying that it respected the court’s verdict and it does not condone any form of violence.

“The club is aware that both players will be pursuing an appeal in determination to clear their names. We trust that they will be accorded fair hearing,” the statement read in part.

In a twist of fate, some 18 kilometres away from the city of cool waters, at Kamiti, Leleni was a free man, walking out of a place he first stepped in while he was only 23 years.

He is a beneficiary of Supreme Court’s verdict that outlawed mandatory death sentence.

On reviewing the sentence, the court yesterday found that he had learnt a lesson for his crime and was remorseful to both the community and the victim of his crime.

Other inmates

The court also observed that he started a football club in Kamiti, something which had helped reform other inmates.

The 42-year-old had been charged alongside one Peter Mwangi Kangethe in 2000 for using knives and machetes while stealing a Panasonic television and a blanket in Kiambu. The complainant in the case, Mburu Wang’endo told the court that the TV had been wrapped in a blanket and the two abandoned it when he raised alarm.

On the first appeal, in 2003, High Court Judge Mbogholi Msagha affirmed the sentence.

Aggrieved, they both moved to the Court of Appeal which released Kangethe and left Leleni. Kangethe luckily escaped jail due to a mistake by the magistrate’s court - he was not given a right to ask Leleni questions.

Some items

Leleni, a mitumba seller narrated that Kangethe, a matatu conductor asked for company to Kiambu to collect some items. He claimed that he waited for Kangethe at a bus stage and suddenly a group of people came running and arrested him saying he was the one.

The court heard he did not know what he had done until he was presented before the court.

Appeals court judges Phillip Waki, Riaga Omollo and William Deverell found that there was sufficient evidence that the two had committed robbery.  

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