Man gets 40-year sentence for hacking his mother

A man will spend the next 40 years behind bars after he was found guilty of murdering his mother.

While arriving at the judgement, High Court judge William Musyoka said the prosecution had proven its case against Simon Musambai Naman "beyond a shadow of doubt".

Justice Musyoka noted that a psycho-social report, filed by probation officers, painted Musambai as a violent man, who had poor ties with his family and community thus unsuitable for a non-custodial sentence.

The court heard that Musambai attacked Helen Mboka Naman with an axe on November 1, 2012 at Emariku village in Khwisero.

Luciana Nziwa, a neighbour who witnessed the heinous murder, told the court that she was standing a few metres away from Mboka at around 8am.

"The accused came out of nowhere and without uttering a word went to the place where his mother was milking a cow and struck her on the head once," said Ms Nziwa.

Nziwa ran out of the compound screaming as Musambai gave chase but luckily he did not catch up with her.

The witness was rescued by other neighbours who responded to her distress calls. They found  Mboka's body lying in a pool of blood.

When Musambai realised that the neighbours knew what he had done and might attack him, he surrendered himself to officers at Khwisero Police Station.

Peter Mudogo, a brother to the accused, told the court that the attack was prompted by a long-standing dispute after their mother declined several requests by the accused to cut trees planted by their late father.

In mitigation, Musambai submitted that he has been in custody since 2012 and had learnt his lesson. He urged the court to grant him a non-custodial sentence because his masonry skills would be wasted in prison.

He was granted 14 days to lodge an appeal if aggrieved with the sentence.