Court gavel./FILE
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has secured a 15-year prison sentence against a 32-year-old man, Mwakombe Katana Karisa, after a court in Kilifi found him guilty of raping a 21-year-old student.
According to the DPP, the conviction was delivered by Chief Magistrate James N. Mwaniki, who ruled that the prosecution had proved the charge of rape beyond reasonable doubt.
The prosecution, led by Principal Prosecution Counsel Winnie Atieno Otieno, presented testimonial, medical and forensic evidence linking the accused to the offence.
The DPP said the man had been charged with rape contrary to Section 3(1)(a)(c) of the Sexual Offences Act, No. 3 of 2006. The offence was committed on July 10, 2024, at a village in Kilifi County, where the court found that he intentionally and unlawfully penetrated the student without her consent.
According to evidence presented in court by the prosecution, the victim was on her way to school at about 6am when she was accosted by the accused, who was armed with a knife and a bottle.
"The man threatened the student before strangling her, forcibly removing her clothes and sexually assaulting her," DPP said.
Court proceedings heard that shortly after the incident, the victim encountered an independent witness who noticed that her school uniform was soiled and received an immediate report of the attack.
The prosecution told the court that the witness's account supported the complainant's testimony and helped establish the sequence of events following the assault.
Medical evidence presented during the trial confirmed that the victim had recently been sexually assaulted.
According to the DPP, examinations conducted after the incident revealed a freshly broken hymen and bleeding, findings that were consistent with the complainant's account of the attack.
The prosecution further relied on forensic evidence recovered during investigations.
The DPP said forensic analysis detected spermatozoa on exhibits collected in the case, while DNA profiling conclusively linked biological material recovered from the exhibits to the accused.
The prosecution argued that the scientific evidence corroborated the complainant's testimony and placed the accused at the scene of the crime.
Although the accused denied committing the offence and raised an alibi defence, the court found that the prosecution's evidence overwhelmingly identified him as the perpetrator.
According to the DPP, the court rejected the defence after finding that witness testimony, medical findings and forensic analysis consistently pointed to the accused's involvement in the attack.
In sentencing him to 15 years in prison, the court underscored the gravity of the offence and the need to protect vulnerable members of society from sexual violence, the DPP said.
The accused was granted 14 days to appeal both the conviction and sentence.
