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

• 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.