Expat’s killers get 56 years each

Five men who killed an expatriate working with the United Nations in Lokichogio have been sentenced to 56 years each.

The five, among them a respected community leader, were convicted of killing World Food Programme boss Silence Chirara three years ago.

Milton Kabulit, James Kamais, Francis Karenga, David Eipa and Koikoi Emoni were found guilty of killing Chirara on May 7, 2008 by Mr Justice Anyara Emukule sitting in Nakuru High Court on Monday.

The judge said the convicts would be eligible for parole after spending 30 years behind bars.

Chirara, a Zambian expatriate who was working at WFP’s Lokichogio base in Turkana, was shot seven times as he tried to enter the base at around 10pm.

Mr Justice Emukule, who convicted the five on November 12, 2012 but delivered the sentence last week, observed that the five were directly involved in the planning and execution of the murder.

Eipa, who was the chairman of Lokichogio Multiple Purpose Cooperative Society, viewed Chirara as a stumbling block to the development of the Turkana community.

Justice Emukule said Eipa was dissatisfied with a UN decision to shift Unicef operations from Lokichogio to Juba in Southern Sudan as it would result to loss of hundreds of jobs for the local youth.

“Because Eipa believed that Chirara was the mastermind of the decision, he intricately plotted his death,” the judge said.

Evidence of how Eipa tracked Chirara’s movement and the calls he exchanged with Karenga, who the court pointed out to have been the gang’s errand man, was presented in court.

Eipa and Karenga exchanged calls seven times between 9pm and 10pm when the expatriate was gunned down.

Karenga had hid at the WFP’s camp gate together with Kamais who the court termed as the hit man and the executioner who carried out the murder on a contract of Sh100,000.

“It was Karenga who identified Chirara to Kamais before he was gunned down in a hail of bullets,” the court heard.

Milton Kabulit was singled out as the person who procured the weapon from Amoni, the seventh accused person, and later picked it from the killer after the crime and hid it at a relative’s manyatta.

While delivering the judgement, Justice Emukule noted that the five had never expressed remorse for their crime and as such the only appropriate sentence would be a long imprisonment.

Two other men, both senior security officers at the UN camp in Lokichogio were acquitted of the murder.

The judge said that he found no material evidence, direct or circumstantial, to link Joseph Chacha and Jonathan Merimug to the murder of Chirara.