A Kibera magistrate has sentenced a man to 20 years in jail for kichapping, locking up and repeatedly defiling a 14-year-old girl for two days.
Henry Atwon’go Opati was convicted and sentenced on Friday by Kibera senior principal magistrate Derrick Kuto who termed the offences "barbaric".
The magistrate said the prosecution had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Opati was found guilty of locking the minor in his house, undressing her, photographing her while naked and repeatedly defiling her for two days.
He was accused of committing the offences between May 23, 2016. and May 25, 2016, in the Silanga area of Kibera within Nairobi.
He had been charged with the second count of indecently touching the minor.
Prosecutor Allan Mogere said Opati gagged the minor with a piece of cloth and pushed her into a house, which he locked.
Mogere displayed to the court photos that the accused person took of the naked girl using his mobile phone.
The minor identified Opati as the man who defiled her.
She told the court the accused person gagged her and defiled her for two days.
“He covered my mouth with a cloth and he defiled me. I felt a lot of pain and he also touched my breasts on several occasions,” she told Kuto.
“He told me he wanted me to stay with him in his house and be like his wife, " she testified.
She said she was ordered to stand on his bed in different positions as he took photos of her.
In his defence, Opati told the court the accused person came to his house "like a sister".
"She came to my house and told me she had a disagreement with her mother. Because she had never visited my place, I welcomed her as my sister," he told the court.
Kuto dismissed his defence and ruled the evidence was overwhelming. and persuasive.
Opati was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Opati has 14 days to appeal.
(Edited by V. Graham)
