One Justice Mativo said parliament should consider changing the law to allow courts to decide whether or not to send elderly people to jail. Many of the elderly men released from prison after being wrongly convicted for defilement are trying to pick up the pieces after suffering both socially and economically.
Poor, sick, bitter and stigmatized, that perhaps best describes them at the moment.
They were released after the High Court found that they had been falsely accused by the alleged victims’ parents to settle personal scores. But the victims say they have since forgiven the accusers and just want to move on.
Some sold
Police and prosecutors often fail to dig deep into the cases, leading to the suspects’ conviction,” says High Court advocate Wahome Gikonyo.
He adds that some lower courts also do not thoroughly examine the prosecution’s evidence, leading to a mistrial and prejudice against the suspects. He adds that in sexual offence cases, the lower courts tend to believe the evidence of the minor and her mother.
The case of Mr Macharia Kiama, alias Kibaaya, for instance. Mr Kiama, 56, and mentally unstable, was released last week by Justice Teresia Matheka, after appealing against a 10-year sentence for attempting to defile a five-year-old girl.
But the man from Gichira village in Tetu, Nyeri County, had already spent three years at the King’ong’o GK Prison. His brother, Mwangi Kiama, says he was born deaf and mute, and that in 1992 he developed a mental condition that drew children to him.
In June 2014, as a five-year-old girl was playing with him, holding his hands at the local shopping centre, her mother, who ran an eatery, ran towards them screaming, accusing Kibaaya of molesting her daughter.
Mr Kiama adds that the woman had complained that his brother, who spent a lot of time at the shopping centre, was a nuisance. “That was the basis of the criminal case,” he says.
The incident was reported to police and Kibaaya was arrested, tried and convicted. Efforts to get the mother of the alleged victim for a comment were futile, since she had moved without telling anyone where she was going.
Allowing Kibaaya’s appeal, Justice Matheka noted that Kenya’s criminal justice system is currently to deal with a disability like his. In Mukurweini, Mr Sammy Ndegwa Mugo, 70, is also struggling to be accepted back into the community.
He was sentenced to 20 years in jail for allegedly attempting to defile a nine-year-old girl. He had spent nearly two years in prison before the High Court allowed his appeal after finding that he was framed.
Mr Mugo recalls that, on June 6, 2016, he was standing outside his gate as the alleged victim passed by. Shortly thereafter, her mother started screaming, attracting neighbours.
“She alleged that I was defiling the girl. I was confused. The villagers landed on me with kicks and blows. I suffered partial hearing and sight impairment. I also broke one of my fingers,” says Mr Mugo, tears flowing down his cheeks.
Mr Mugo said all he had done was warn a group of children, including the minor, to stop destroying his fruits and coffee berries as they passed through his farm on their way to fetch water from the nearby River Gura. He says they spent more than Sh300,000 on the case.
It is sad when someone is jailed for a crime they never did, do you feel the government should be conducting a thorough investigation before jailing elderly men and women?