A man who had been on trial for more than a decade over a murder that occurred during a rainy November night in 2014 has been acquitted by the High Court.
The case dates back to the night of November 2, 2014, in a small trading center in Kirinyaga County.
That day, several locals had gathered at a local pub to drink.
According to one of the key witnesses for the prosecution, a group of patrons had been drinking various local brews from the afternoon into the evening.
Among them was the now deceased, who had been seen with his brother earlier in the day. The witness recalled that the deceased’s brother left sometime around 5 p.m., leaving him behind to continue drinking.
As night fell and the rain began, the bar owner reportedly began closing up around 10 p.m., urging patrons to finish their drinks.
"Joseph Muthike Mbiti (the deceased) was at the pub when we arrived at 3 pm. He was seated with his brother called Felix. They were drinking on their own. So, when we were told to finish, Muthike left earlier than us. His brother had left earlier. Karemi(accused) and other individuals followed," the court heard from a witness.
The key witness stated that he was the last to leave the bar and, upon stepping outside, observed the accused allegedly pushing the deceased into a water-filled roadside ditch.
The same witness claimed that when he tried to intervene, he too was pushed into the ditch.
The events of that night remained murky, clouded further by alcohol consumption, poor visibility, and conflicting accounts.
The next morning, the body of the deceased was found by passersby near a residential gate approximately 500 meters from the bar.
He was reportedly naked and bore injuries, including visible cuts and signs of having been dragged along the road.
Word of the discovery quickly spread through the village, and police were called to the scene. A postmortem conducted days later attributed the cause of death to internal bleeding resulting from trauma.
Police arrested the accused the same day, acting on the account of the witness who alleged to have seen him assault the deceased. Officers also recovered clothes from the accused’s home, reportedly damp and muddy, raising further suspicion.
The accused was later arraigned, charged with murder, and remanded in custody pending trial.
The trial formally commenced in late 2014, but what followed was a series of delays, adjournments, and missed hearings that dragged the case across more than a decade.
At one point, proceedings stalled for nearly eight years, as witnesses failed to appear despite summonses, and the prosecution struggled to coordinate with investigating officers, some of whom had been transferred, retired, or unavailable due to training.
The court was forced to
intervene multiple times, issuing stern warnings and summoning senior police
officers to explain the inordinate delays.
"There was a long period of inaction in the progress of the trial from 22/6/16 to 8.5.2024, when the trial did not proceed on account of non-attendance of witnesses despite witness summonses issued by the Court," the judgement read.
Despite the initial promise of the eyewitness testimony, the prosecution’s case began to unravel as the hearing progressed.
The sole eyewitness admitted he had been drinking for hours before the alleged assault and was intoxicated at the time of the incident. His identification of the accused relied heavily on security lighting outside the bar, which the court later found to be insufficiently described to establish reliability.
The witness also stated that others were present outside the bar, but none of those individuals were called to testify. There were also inconsistencies between his account and that of the deceased’s spouse, who claimed to have seen her husband alive and drinking alone around midnight, well after the time the prosecution claimed he had been attacked.
The prosecution attempted to invoke the “doctrine of last seen,” arguing that the accused was the last person seen with the deceased and that he should therefore offer an explanation as to what happened.
However, the court found that this doctrine could not stand on its own in the absence of corroborative evidence.
"This Court notes that the prosecution did not complete the prosecution of the case in some respects such as the necessary recall of the Deceased’s widow who broke down during her cross examination; the presentation of any evidence extracted from any DNA recovered from the accused’s clothes and shoes taken upon his arrest, or on the deceased’s shoes allegedly recovered from the scene," read part of the judgement.
A woman who had allegedly identified the accused in a police lineup was never called to testify, further weakening the prosecution's case. The officer who conducted the identification parade was similarly not brought before the court.
A list of items said to have been recovered from the bar was found inconsistent with oral testimony and was not supported by actual exhibits.
During his defense, the accused denied any involvement in the crime, stating that he had no memory of any altercation due to alcohol consumption.
He confirmed he had been drinking at a different establishment earlier in the day, but could not recall going to the bar where the incident allegedly occurred. He stated that he was informed of the murder only upon his arrest.
In its judgment, the court noted that while the death of the deceased was undisputed and tragic, there remained too many unanswered questions about the chain of events leading to his death.
The judge ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused committed the act that caused the fatal injuries. The court also expressed concern over the credibility of the key witness and emphasised that a conviction could not rest on uncorroborated, shaky evidence—especially from a single intoxicated eyewitness.
"Accordingly, for the reasons set out above, the Court finds that the prosecution has not proved the charge against the accused to the required standard of beyond a reasonable doubt and the accused is, consequently, acquitted of the offence of murder," Justice Edward Muriithi ruled.
With that, the accused was acquitted and released, bringing to a close a trial that had spanned nearly eleven years.
