A father who killed his wife nine years ago after he found her having sex with another man in the bush will continue serving his 20-year sentence.
The appellate court threw out his appeal. Mdoe Kombe was sentenced and convicted in 2018 on the lesser offence of manslaughter after the High Court found that he indeed killed his wife Kwekwe Nyanje.
Kombe had been charged with murdering Kwekwe on October 4, 2011, at about 4pm in Majugwani village, Mwereni location, Kwale county.
Kombe had admitted to having killed his wife. However, he stated that it was because he had found her having sex with another man in a bush.
He allegedly chased the man and his wife escaped to her parents’ home, where he had found her and eventually stabbed her to death.
The trial court in its judgment ruled that the husband was provoked into committing the offence.
It convicted him of manslaughter rather than the murder he had been charged with, going ahead to sentence him to 20 years behind bars.
He appealed, arguing that the judge erred in law by failing to see that nobody testified to have witnessed seeing him at the alleged scene of crime killing his wife, which he later withdrew and stuck to appealing the sentence.
He challenged the sentence, arguing that counsel asserted that the sentence was harsh and excessive.
Counsel also said after he was convicted, the appellant had stated in mitigation that he was a first offender, was now a single parent, and had shown remorse, and prayed for leniency.
However, Justices DK Musinga, Gatembu Kairu and Agnes Murgor dismissed his arguments on sentence, ruling they had no jurisdiction to entertain appeals on the severity of the sentence.
“Bearing this in mind, we are of the view that the learned judge took into account the facts of the case, and more particularly the appellant’s probation report, and exercising of his discretion, sentenced the appellant to 20 years’ imprisonment,” the court ruled.
"As such, we have no reason to interfere with the sentence imposed."
During the trial of the case at the High Court, Kombe’s father-in-law had testified that his late daughter and Kombe had an understanding that she went back home.
Kombe allegedly followed her to their home to resolve the misunderstanding, but when his father-in-law went to call the elders to settle the dispute, he was called by his wife and told that his daughter had been stabbed.
“On his return, he found that the appellant had left the home and his daughter was lying in a pool of blood with a huge cut wound on her neck,” court papers read.