Dorothy Kweyu longs to meet Nadia, the widow whose husband was accidentally killed by her son, and give her a tight warm embrace and utter the words, “Please forgive me and my son.”
It is a big if, because her 50-year-old son is, by dint of Sharia law, a candidate of being led to a butchering field and being beheaded by a sword.
Kweyu told the Star that for the 13 years that her firstborn of nine children has been behind bars with execution on the table, she has never been peaceful; distress and anguish have been a part of her, and at some point, even eating was a problem.
It took her church elder's encouragement to eat and cheer up who warned that failure to eat could see her die before her son was killed in jail.
The son, Stephen Munyakho, emigrated to the oil-rich Middle East country in search of better life some 28 years ago.
But in 2011 when he worked as a warehouse manager, a fight broke out pitting him and a Yemeni national living in the country named Abdul Halim Mujahid Makrad Saleh and who stabbed Munyakho on his thigh and thumb.
Saleh would walk himself to a hospital and later died.
Munyako would be convicted of manslaughter in October 2011, but the victim’s family appealed, and the conviction was enhanced to murder. Meanwhile, Munyakho has been in jail for 13 years now.
The appellate decision enhanced the punishment to execution, and he was to face the act in 2014.
Thankfully, one of Saleh’s sons was only five-years-old at the time, and according to Sharia law, all the children had to be 18 years to consent to the capital punishment.
After long and difficult negotiations between Kenyan embassy officials for Munyakho’s family and the widow’s, they were given the option of giving blood money to the widow in line with Shariah law.
The execution was due on May 15, but after government intervention, Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei said it was postponed. He did not specify for how long.
The initial figure demanded was 10 million Saudi Riyals, equivalent of Sh352.2 million and a further negotiation saw them slash the figure to 3.5 million Saudi Riyal, equivalent of Sh123 million at the current exchange rates.
Kweyu says that while the family has mounted an aggressive public fundraising campaign to raise the impossibly high figure, she believes a miracle can still happen to have the intended exercise put off permanently and let her boy walk home.
“I’m a faith person and I believe miracles can happen. Either Kenyans and all well-wishers can give in our current campaign and raise this money or the widow Nadia and her family have mercy on me and my son and forgive us,” she said.
“This is an amount I cannot raise in my lifetime, and I’m 73 now. It is only government and people helping that can see us achieve it.”
Kweyu says she harbours no bitterness against Saleh’s family, explaining that being a widow herself, she understands the pain caused to the family and the strains the widow is going through.
“I fully empathise with them now that they are Yemeni nationals and trying to make life in Saudi, so I would not want to dictate to them how to manage the pain of their loss. But I believe that even in Islam, forgiveness is among the foremost virtues,” she said.
She went on, explaining her connection to Islam:” I fully understand and respect Islam because I’m personally connected to the faith. My grandfather was a Muslim and my own daughter is married to a Muslim young man, even though she is a staunch Catholic and they have chosen to live that way.
“In their prayers, the Muslims pray to Allah whom they call as “the most merciful.” I’m just pleading that the family extends to us this mercy and forgiveness.”
While she is grateful to the government for helping have the execution date pushed back, Kweyu says pain is in the postponing "because it has become even more scary and anxiety-laden."
Should this miracle happen, she says, and she gets a chance to travel to Saudi to pick her son, meeting Nadia will be her first stop.
“If she allows me to meet her, I will hug her and beg for her forgiveness and thank her,” she said.
Kweyu says that as a mother, she believes that her hands are also stained with blood from the son’s unfortunate act “and only Nadia can wash them off by forgiving me.”
“If she does not accept to meet me and forgive me, I will be in pain for the rest of my life,” she said.
So far, the campaign has had 10,000 contributors in the range of Sh1 to Sh1 million, raising a total of Sh8 million locally. They include friends and family, her media colleagues, hers and her children’s alumni groups and total strangers.
The paybill number for giving in the drive is 8056675 and the account name is the name of the contributor. Send money option is to the number 0702878717 (Dorothy Musopole).