Africa-Press – Kenya. Livail Mwasambo was walking home just as the dusk set in on February 20, 2017 when three people attacked him. Led by one Bryson Wanyama Tole whom he knew, the attackers grabbed him, dragged him into the bush and stripped him naked.
Tole held Mwasambo’s legs, as another person he identified as his cousin used a knife to cut his penile shaft and the skin around the scrotum. As if the raw pain already inflicted on him was not enough, the three attackers then held him by the legs and dragged him on the ground while he was still naked. They then left him lying in the dark, naked and bleeding profusely.
He lay there for about 15 minutes in excruciating pain. He then went to the home of a neighbour who covered him with a blanket. Well-wishers took him to hospital.
It is not clear why the man led his gang in visiting the torturous attack on Mwasambo. When Tole was taken to court, he denied committing the offence against the man. He was charged with causing grievous harm.
“He said he knew the complainant. He denied causing him any injuries. He said that the complainant did not identify him. He also said that the complainant had no grudge against him,” the judgment by a magistrate delivered in August 2017 said.
“[The court] found that [Tole] had been properly identified as the perpetrator of the offence; that the complainant was grievously injured by the appellant; that the few contradictory evidence which he found were not fatal to the prosecution case; and that [Mwasambo] had remained consistent in his account of events…”
Tole was convicted and handed a 30-year jail term. But Tole later appealed against the conviction and sentence at the High Court in Voi. He complained that the magistrate’s court failed “to consider that the charges were incurably defective; [relied] on incredible evidence of a single witness which was insufficient to sustain a conviction…”
On the sentence, he complained that it was manifestly harsh and excessive. In December 2017, the court dismissed the appeal, upholding both the conviction and the sentence.
Aggrieved, he went to the Court of Appeal, citing similar grounds. In the June 23 decision, a three-judge bench dismissed the appeal on conviction but agreed with him that the 30-year sentence was harsh. The sentence was reduced by half, starting 2017, meaning that the man has eight more years in jail.
“The appeal against sentence succeeds. We accordingly set aside the sentence of 30 years imprisonment and substitute it with a sentence of 15 years imprisonment from the date of sentencing by the trial court. For avoidance of doubt, the date of sentencing in the trial court was September 7, 2017,” the judgment reads.
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