• The crowd pelted Charo Ndalo with stones, hit his head with wooden blocks and rained heavy blows on his face.
• They then doused his body in petrol and set him ablaze. He died from 95 per cent burns.
Image: FILE
If you participate in mob killings, you will face murder charge with a high chance of being handed a death sentence or time in jail, a court has ruled.
Six years ago on January 17, 10 people led by the area village elder walked to the home of Charo Ndalo in Kilifi and convinced him to go with them to the local chief's office.
A few metres from his home across the river, the group met 30 more people baying for the man's blood, accusing him of witchcraft.
The crowd pelted Charo Ndalo with stones, hit his head with wooden blocks and rained heavy blows on his face.
They then doused his body in petrol and set him ablaze. He died from 95 per cent burns.
The group of 10 that stormed Ndalo's home found him with his wife Kavumbi Charo and their son James Charo Ngala.
The son had accompanied him on the supposed journey to the chief's office, but he escaped the lynching.
Three men, Ndokolani Malau, Kitsao Kahindi and Dama Nyambu Mzungu Nzombo, were later identified as the leaders of the mob that lynched Ndalo.
Police arrested them shortly after and arraigned them on murder charges.
The High Court convicted them on June 18, 2020, and sentenced them to 45 years each.
But in an appeal, they raised numerous grounds of discontent with the decision, arguing that the trial judge did not consider their defense adequately and they were not involved in the mob action in any way.
But Ngala's testimony nailed the trio. He told the court that he saw them rile up the mob and lead in the beating up of his father.
Ngala told the court that a few metres from their home, he saw the crowd of 30 shout “Charo Ndalo, the witch.”
He said he saw Ndokolani and Kazungu Kitsao hold his father by his arms.
“Kazungu Kitsao boxed him in the mouth. Kitsao hit him with a stone on the forehead. Ndokolani is the one who held him,” the judgment by the appellate court reads in part.
Dama Nyambu, he said, shouted, “old man is a witch,” further working up the crowd.
In the heat of the mob action, a new group of about 20 people arrived at the scene and he pleaded with them to spare the life of his father.
But the crowd became even wilder, telling him they “would finish with him[his father] and also finish me.”
Ngala fled to Ganze CID office and reported the incident.
Police officers returned with him to the scene to find Ndalo dead.
Ngala testified that long before the attack, their family had been living in fear as rumours were rife in the village that his father was practicing witchcraft.
Ngala said that in 2014, village elder Dama Kitsao had told him to report to the area's assistant chief in Kitengwani and that when he did, he found a group that included Ndokolani and they warned him that his father had few days to change his ways.
He said the group told him to have his father go for "cleansing otherwise nobody should be blamed for whatever would happen to him".
“That on the same day the appellants had gone in search of the deceased at home but did not find him but said they wanted to finish him and left,” Ngala said. He said he immediately reported the incident on January 6, 2014 at Bamba police station.
The three-judge bench handling the appeal maintained the conviction and sentence.
The judges upheld the assessment of the initial court that “the deceased was physically assaulted before his body was engulfed in fire fumes” and sustained 95% burns, and that “having been burnt alive, he died a painful death.
“.... that the level of participation by a number of people in the commission of the murder demonstrated 'the planning' and malice aforethought in the circumstances 'a death penalty could have been just and proper' but exercising his discretion sentenced each of the appellants to 45 years imprisonment.”