The High Court in Eldoret was on Tuesday treated to drama as a woman slapped and punched a man suspected of killing her daughter.
“You are the one who killed my daughter and I am so angry with you,” Beatrice Wanyota said as she confronted Mustafa Idd and rained blows on him.
He was being led out of court by police officers after Justice Stephen Githinji ordered that he be taken to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital for psychiatric examination before taking the plea.
The attack caught the police, lawyers, court officials and members of the public unawares.
Mustafa, 31, is accused of killing 26-year-old Emma Wanyota on September 30 at Moi’s Bridge in Uasin Gishu County. The victim was a college student in Eldoret.
Emma’s mutilated body was found in a pool of blood in a nappier grass farm next to her home. The legs and arms had been chopped off.
The mother said she was angered by the delayed hearing of the case.
Githinji told Wanyota that the case could not proceed until the suspect is mentally tested.
“As a matter of procedure, anybody charged with murder must first undergo a mental assessment before he is allowed to take the plea. The accused is not yet off the hook.”
He at the same time reprimanded her: "The court will have you arrested and prosecuted if you ever repeat the same."
Wanyota had complained that the case was taking too long to be heard. “Whenever I come to court for my daughter’s case, the matter is always postponed ostensibly to pave the way for mental assessment of the accused.”
Mustafa is also charged with the murder of his former lover, businesswoman Nancy Etome, on July 25 at Kapkoi in Uasin Gishu County.
The case is before the High Court in Kitale.
