The High Court on Wednesday sentenced Joseph Kuria Irungu alias Jowie to death for the 2018 murder of businesswoman Monica Kimani.
Monica was brutally murdered in her Nairobi residence at Lamuria Gardens, in Kilimani on September 19, 2018.
According to Justice Nzioka, the prosecution presented sufficient evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that Jowie murdered Monica.
While delivering the verdict, Justice Grace Nzioka said that Jowie Irungu ‘shall suffer death as provided for the offence of murder under Section 204 of the Penal Code of Kenya’.
The judge noted that there were only three options in sentencing Irungu which included a term of years, life imprisonment or death.
Under the law of Kenya, anyone who intentionally, with malice aforethought, causes the death of another person is guilty of the crime of murder.
Penal Code Section 204 states that anyone found guilty of murder, robbery with violence, treason and other capital offences shall be hanged.
The death penalty has been around for a long time. It was first introduced in 1893 during the pre-colonial period. However, before colonisation, the penalty was rarely used.
Up until 1965, the Murder Act (Abolition of Death Sentence) in the United Kingdom imposed a five-year suspension on the death sentence for murder.
The House of Commons reaffirmed its decision to permanently abolish the death penalty for murder in 1969 by a vote of 343 to 185.
The majority of Britain's colonies, including Kenya, had gained independence by the time the death sentence was abolished in the UK.
This implied that each independent colony could continue the death punishment or follow Britain's lead and do away with it. Kenya decided to keep the death sentence in place.
Since Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu, the leaders of the 1982 failed coup attempt, were hung for treason in 1987, Kenya has not carried out another execution.
In 2017, the Supreme Court declared the mandatory death sentence unconstitutional but did not outlaw it.
The ruling gave judges discretion to decide whether to hand down the death sentence or life imprisonment.
Justice Nzioka in her ruling noted that the apex court termed the mandatory nature of the death sentence as unconstitutional and not the death sentence itself.
"The case declared that the mandatory nature of the death sentence is unconstitutional and that it did not declare the death sentence unconstitutional," she stated while sentencing Jowie.
Despite this legal provision, Kenya has not executed a single convict in over 30 years.
With Jowie handed a death sentence, he will likely serve life imprisonment.
