TWO brothers, Sabato Thabiti and Benjamini Thabiti, are to be hanged over killing their blood brother, Japhet Thabiti, over unspecified motives.
This followed the decision of the Court of Appeal to dismiss the appeal under which the two brothers, the appellants, had lodged in attempt to fault the judgment of the High Court.
Justices Batuel Mmilla, Richard Mziray and Mwanaisha Kwariko confirmed both conviction of murder and the death sentence imposed on the appellants, holding that the grounds of appeal they had lodged lacked merits.
“The prosecution case was proved beyond any shadow of doubt against the appellants. The grounds of appeal thus fail. We therefore find the appeal devoid of merit and we hereby dismiss it in its entirety,” the justices declared.
They were convinced in their minds that, considering the type of weapons used which were directed on the vulnerable parts of the body in concert between the appellants and their brother who went at large, show that they had malice aforethought to cause the death of the deceased.
During hearing of the appeal, the appellants had complained, among other things, that evidence of their neighbour, which was relied upon by the High Court was not credible enough to be believed to ground their convictions of murder and that was marred with contradictions and uncorroborated.
In their judgment, however, the justices of the appeals court had this to say: “We entertain no doubt that (the neighbour’s) evidence has been tested and found credible and truthful. It did not even require corroboration as contended (by counsel for the appellant).”
They pointed out that after going through the records, the evidence of appellants’ neighbour who witnessed the attack of the deceased was corroborated by other prosecution witnesses.
According to the justices, the witness had said that the deceased was cut in the chest and neck and other prosecution witnesses also said that they saw the deceased’s body with injuries on those areas.
“The appellants complained that (their neighbour) had interest to serve because the body of the deceased was found near her house. Because we have believed (the neighbour’s) evidence as it was the case at the trial, the issue of serving interest cannot arise,” they said.
Facts show that on December 22, 2013 at 05:00pm, one Felister Kateragi, a resident of Mkalinzi village, was at home. Whilst there, she saw four people running towards her direction.
They were her neighbours. Three of them were the appellants and their brother, one Segwenda.
These three while armed with sticks of eucalyptus and a knife which was carried by the first appellant, were chasing Bigirimana, the other name of the deceased.
When they reached her house, the three started assaulting the deceased with sticks and cut him with the knife in the neck and stabbed his chest.
When Kateragi asked the three to stop the assault, Benjamin assaulted her with a fist in the breast, and she retreated. The deceased ran for about five paces and then fell.
The three assailants followed him and continued to assault him. When Kateragi shouted for help, the assailants ran away but the deceased had already been killed.
Several people, including the tencell- leader gathered at the scene. Thereafter, some people kept guard of the body of the deceased and others went to look for the killers at their home.
