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MP’s relatives furious after killer police officer gets 10 years for manslaughter

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Uasin Gishu adminstration Police boss Joseph Keitany inspects the car which Ainamoi Mp David Kimutai Too was shot together with  Eunice Chepkwony at West Indies Estate in Eldoret. PHOTO/ FILE

Uasin Gishu adminstration Police boss Joseph Keitany inspects the car which Ainamoi Mp David Kimutai Too was shot together with Eunice Chepkwony at West Indies Estate in Eldoret. PHOTO/ FILE 

By  NOAH CHEPLOENPosted Thursday, October 29 2009 at 22:00

In Summary

  • Judge says shootings were a crime of passion committed in self-defence

The trial of a policeman accused of killing an MP and his companion on Thursday ended in tears of rage and disappointment for families of the victims.

Cries of anger rang out when the court reduced charges against Andrew Moeche to manslaughter and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The former Eldoret traffic policeman had been charged with the murder of Ainamoi MP David Kimutai Too and his companion, Eunice Chepkwony, who the court established was Moeche’s lover.

Election violence

The two were shot dead at West Indies Estate in Eldoret on January 31, 2008.

The killings, at the height of the post-election violence in 2008, worsened the riots in Eldoret and the South Rift, the home area of the MP.

Nakuru-based judge David Maraga convicted Moeche of manslaughter, saying his was a crime of passion, committed in self-defence and on provocation.

The prosecution had sought a conviction of murder for the former police officer.

The judge said Moeche and Ms Chepkwony, also a police officer, were betrothed. The court also found that Moeche shot both the MP and Ms Chepkwony when they confronted him with firearms — a pistol and a G3 rifle — both of which had been assigned to Ms Chepkwony, who was based at Eldoret police station.

But tearful relatives accused the judge of leniency and dismissed the sentence as “questionable”. The former MP’s brother, Mr Richard Langat, said Moeche deserved a stiffer sentence as he had deprived two young families of their breadwinners.

“It is not logical. We are not happy at all,” he told the Nation outside the court after the judgment.

Mr Too’s wife, Linah, and other close relatives were lost for words and broke into tears when the sentence was read.

Moeche’s relatives could not be traced while his lawyer, Ms Gladys Ndeda, declined to comment.

In his 24-page judgment, Mr Justice Maraga, who heard the case for almost two years, said it was clear from the evidence that Moeche acted in self-defence and without malice aforethought — the benchmark required for a murder conviction.

A person was justified to use a reasonable amount of force in self-defence if he or she believed that the danger of bodily harm was imminent and force was necessary to repel it, the judge said.

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Add a comment (12 comments so far)

  1. Submitted by vgogero
    Posted October 31, 2009 01:21 PM

    As far as the law is concerned the defendant has the benefit of doubt and the prosecution the burden of prove which they have to discharge beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt

  2. Submitted by jaributest
    Posted October 31, 2009 04:19 AM

    This a crime of passion - in passion you never know what will happen. If you catch someone with your wife or lover it is not unreasonable to for most people to fly into rages and get very agitated where they can't control themselves, especially if she has been lying to you that she is not seeing someone else - that is why get into fights all the time because of a girls and girls because of a boy.

  3. Submitted by muvic08
    Posted October 30, 2009 07:40 PM

    KOluochs, I can work with you in coming up with an online lobby group to push for retrial and maybe further forensics. This doesn't seem to make sense to me at all! You can get to me through muvic08@yahoo.com

See all 12 comments

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