Samuel Ombina Buruk, killed the woman he loved when she said he was a pest, not her type and she didn’t love him.
They had a physical fight. He hit her head with his fists, killing her.
He then dumped Betty Akello’s body in a well. That was on August 6, 2022.
Buruk was arrested, charged and convicted of manslaughter last year in Busia county.
He was sentenced to 25 years on February 2.
He told the court he had left her at home, went out with a friend and when he returned, she was gone.
Her body was found in a well.
But earlier he confessed to police after his arrest that “he had made romantic advances to Akello who rebuffed him, leading to a tussle in which he hit her head with a fist, whereupon she fell and died. He disposed of the body by putting it in a well”.
After his conviction, the probation officer in his pre-sentencing report, said Buruk told the officer “he was at home with the deceased, who was washing clothes near the well, when a cow attacked her and pushed her into the well.”
The judge said although the probation report officer was largely positive and urged a lenient sentence, the man gave conflicting accounts, rather than sticking to his voluntary confession to police.
The judge said he was not remorseful though a life had been lost.
“I wonder that, given that in that report the convict recounted to the probation officer a story completely different from his defence statement and from the confession recorded from him[…..], there can possibly be no remorse under the circumstances,” the judge said in a sentencing decision dated February 2.
The maximum punishment available for manslaughter in the Penal Code is life imprisonment.
“I have noted the circumstances of the commission of the offence, the written submissions by the advocate for the convicting mitigation, and the pre-sentence report. I have also noted the antecedents of the convict, especially the fact that he is a young adult,” court papers say.
“I have taken all these into account, balancing them against the fact that a human being lost her life most needlessly. In the circumstances, I shall give the convict a custodial sentence of 25 years imprisonment.”
