- Upon receiving the cash, he requested to talk to the employer which was granted.
- He later opened the door of the store and offered to be handcuffed.
Image: The Star
A driver stormed his place of work and later locked himself in a godown threatening to die by suicide if he was not paid Sh1.5 million owed to him.
The man went to the garage in Eastleigh, Nairobi and locked himself in the store that had some chemicals that he said he would use in his mission.
The incident happened on Wednesday afternoon at the garage.
Police were called to the scene and established the man had worked there for ten years and had not been paid the said amount.
The officers initiated negotiations with the man as he held perfumes and other chemicals, which he intended to use.
The team had to use his mother tongue- a language that the driver understood well to convince him to stand down.
They negotiated and the driver agreed to stop his intended mission on condition the employer sent him a minimum of Sh450,000 which was paid through his mobile phone.
Upon receiving the cash, he requested to talk to the employer which was granted.
He later opened the door of the store and offered to be handcuffed.
He said he knew he had committed an offence and was arrested and taken away to the police cells.
The security officers said they were counselling him as part of efforts to address the issue.
Police statistics show cases of suicide are on the rise in the country.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions says People who attempt suicide will not be charged with the offence.
Instead, they will be taken for mental tests and be counselled before the ODPP decides on the way forward.
This is part of the way of decriminalising the offence pending the legislation of Section 226 of the Penal Code that addresses the issue.
In Kenya, attempted suicide as laid out by Section 226 of the Penal Code is a misdemeanor punishable by two years imprisonment or a fine or both, as per Section 36 of the Penal Code.
For instance, in Moyale, ODPP declined to charge a man who attempted to die by suicide in a letter dated October 26, 2023 and declared it was not proper to prosecute the accused.
“Despite the offence of attempted suicide still being a part of the law and still an offence in the Penal Code, it has now become proper practice not to charge or punish people that attempt suicide as the same is attributed to a person suffering a mental illness and it would be akin to punishing a sick person for being sick.”
This is part of efforts to decriminalise the issue. Three agencies have moved to court seeking to have the court declare a section of the Penal Code that outlaws attempted suicide as being unconstitutional.