An early morning call on Labour Day 2011 turned the normal Sunday routine of Mombasa-based Major (rtd) John Kabiru Gitahi and his wife Agnes Njoki into an ordeal.
Their daughter was brutally killed in her house at Nairobi’s Umoja estate in the early hours of May 1, 2011,
The murder took place at about the same time another event in faraway Pakistan hit world headlines: The killing of notorious Al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden by American special forces.
Despite the importance of bin Laden’s death, Mr Kabiru recalls that it was the murder of his daughter, Sarah Wambui Kabiru, that dominated the news headlines in Kenya for the entire week after it happened, probably because the victim was a well-known television personality.
Not surprisingly, at times Mrs Kabiru was unable to bear the stress, as happened during her daughter’s funeral at Nairobi’s Lang’ata cemetery on May 7, 2011, when she collapsed before she could lay a wreath. She was rushed to the Karen Hospital, where she spent two days.
Not long afterwards, her nerves caved in again when she visited her late daughter’s house in Umoja to sort out and collect her belongings, and she was again suddenly taken ill.She ended up spending a week at Nairobi’s Mater Hospital.
For Mr Kabiru, the loss was even more painful as he had a special connection with his daughter since he acted as a midwife during the delivery of their baby girl under the direction of his wife, when Wambui was prematurely born at his home in Subukia on December 25, 1983.
The accused, who is being represented by lawyer Cliff Ombeta, denied committing murder in the trial that began about seven years ago.
On the fateful day, the accused allegedly left his dead wife in their house and went on a drinking spree while pretending that all was well.
It is the deceased’s brother and neighbours who later found her dead body in the locked bedroom of their house while Mr Dola allegedly went into hiding for a few days before surrendering himself to the police in Naivasha.
The couple’s househelp told court that the deceased would usually hand the baby to her in the morning but, on that fateful day, Dola was the one who did it.
In his defense, Dola told court that the deceased attacked him with a pair of scissors and a struggle ensued, during which his wife fell down and hit her head.
Moses Dola, the journalist who was convicted of manslaughter following the death of his wife, former NTV reporter Sarah Wambui Kabiru, has been handed 10 years in prison.
High Court judge Roseline Korir handed down the sentence today at the Milimani Law Courts in the capital Nairobi.
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