It took about six years, more than 2,000 days, for justice to be done.
Justice Jessie Lessit on Friday reconstructed the chilling manner in which three AP officers and their informer planned and executed the murders of human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and taxi driver more than six years ago.
Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri were abducted as they left a court in Mavoko on June 23, 2016.
He had previously been trailed by police informer Peter Ngugi. The trio were picked up and taken to Syokimau police post and handed over to Sylvia Wanjiku and Stephen Cheburet who were staffing the facility.
Ngugi was found guilty.
They were thrown into the cells but were never booked as required. Later that night, the victims were removed from the cells and taken to a field in Soweto area where they were strangled to death one after the other.
The bodies were then transported to Ol Donyo Sabuk for dumping in two separate cars before the killer cops returned to Syokimau where they drank till morning in celebration.
That killer gang was led by police officer Fredrick Leliman.
The motive: Kimani's client Mwenda would not drop his assault case against Frederick Leliman, who repeatedly threatened him to forget the case, or he could lose his job.
Mwenda and Kimani forged ahead.
Justice Lessit on Friday convicted Leliman, Cheburet, Wanjiku and their informer Peter Ngugi of the murders.
She however acquitted a fourth police officer Leonard Mwangi who was adversely mentioned in the murder. “I find that his alibi has shaken the evidence of the prosecution,” Justice Lessit ruled.
Mwangi had told the court that he was on leave at the time the murders happened. He called his wife to testify. She said he was in Ruiru, some 38km away from Mlolongo.
His phone data also showed that he was within Ruiru contrary to the confession by Ngugi that he was part of the gang that killed the lawyer and his client.
In his confession, which was admitted in court, Ngugi said he drove the car Willie Kimani was in after they were abducted.
He disposed of it before returning to Mlolongo.
In her judgment that was read for three hours, Lessit said the confession by Ngugi depicts the true events of what really happened to the victims.
She said the court was satisfied the confession by Ngugi is the truth.
Lessit noted that even though Ngugi had retracted his earlier confession during his defence, he changed his story to a new confession but the facts were not very different.
In this new confession on the witness stand, he added new names and removed that of Mwangi.
The judge said the confession was true because it was corroborated by phone data and other evidence that had been produced long after it was recorded.
One of the pieces of evidence considered was the note on tissue paper that Kimani gave to the construction workers who were passing by the police post where they were being held.
That confirmed the three men were in the post.
This is because Ngugi had confessed that the victims were taken to the Syokimau police post.
The court also considered the testimony of three witnesses who confirmed that they saw the cars at the Soweto field on the night of June 23, 2016, which police said was the murder night and scene.
In his retracted confession, Ngugi said the three were taken to the open field in Soweto where they were killed one after the other by Leliman.
Justice Lessit has found that Cheburet and Wanjiku were not mentioned in the confession as being principal offenders in the murder of the three.
The two in their defence had argued that they were not at the police post when the deceased was taken there.
But the court has dismissed that defence saying even phone data placed them at the post, further adding that Cheburet phone data placed him at the murder scene.
She dismissed the defence by Wanjiku that she was just following the orders of her bosses as she was a junior officer at the time.
The judge said Wanjiku is a principal offender further ruling that she cannot say she was not aware the deceased was in that cell.
“The third accused feigning ignorance does not mean she is innocent, the argument that she was following orders of her bosses is not a defence,” she said.
Phone data and location of Wanjiku and Cheburet showed that they played a part in the murders.
Leliman was the first to be found guilty of the crime after the court ruled that he was the only one among the five who had a motive to kill Mwenda.
The court said Leliman never denied ever meeting Mwenda and even shooting him a year before his murder.
The judge further said even after shooting him he took him to a nearby hospital and was referred to take him to another facility but Leliman instead took him to the cells.
The court said that as a result of the injury, Mwenda was not able to go back to his motorcycle and that’s when he lodged the case at Ipoa.
“I find that the first accused had a personal vendetta against the second deceased (Mwenda) and he had a reason to silence the deceased because his job was on the line due to the case Mwenda lodged at Ipoa,” the judge ruled.
The court also held that Mwenda was the main target and not Willie Kimani and Muiruri who were killed as a cover-up.
The judge ruled that the prosecution had proven beyond measurable doubt that the four killed the deceased.
The case will be mentioned on September 23 when the court will receive the victim impact statement and the probation report before sentencing is delivered.
Lawyer Cliff Ombeta told the court after the judgment that the defence was not satisfied with the ruling and will be appealing the judgment.
(Edited by V. Graham)
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