•Appellate judges say prosecution evidence insufficient to warrant hanging
•Nderitu was convicted in December 2009 of stabbing his wife Anne Nyambura in the stomach with a knife over chang’aa
Image: FILE
A man who killed his wife and sentenced to death will now serve 20 years in jail on appeal. for a man who killed his wife in Eastleigh will now serve 20 years in jail.
The Court of Appeal substituted Michael Nderitu's murder charge with manslaughter.
Nderitu was convicted in December 2009 of stabbing his wife Anne Nyambura in the stomach with a knife over chang’aa.
In their ruling, Judges Erastus Kithinj, Wanjiru Karanja and Ole Kantai said there was sufficient evidence that Nderitu and his wife constantly fought and quarrelled.
Theirs was a fight between spouses where excessive force was used, they said. However, malice was not proved, they added.
“Having re-evaluated the evidence, we’ve come to the conclusion that the appellant should have been convicted of the offence of manslaughter, contrary to Section 202 of the Penal Code as read with Section 205 of the Code,” they ruled.
Nderitu appealed the High Court death sentence in 2017 on the ground that he was convicted on insufficient evidence. He said the court erred in law by failing to evaluate the entire evidence as the prosecution evidence was contradictory and inconsistent.
Prosecution witness Duncan Mwenda said the convict had a knife and the wife screamed, attracting the attention of other residents.
Anne’s sisters Purity Njeri and Alice Waithera testified that Nderitu struck the deceased in the stomach with a knife, spilling out the intestines. Nderitu threatened to stab them also when they tried to protect their sister, they said.
Purity and Alice said the couple sold and consumed chang’aa and occasionally fought.
Nderitu presented himself to the police, saying he had killed someone. The officers noted injuries on his face. He was taken to the hospital and thereafter arrested.
Another prosecution witness, Dr Njai Mungai, said Anne had two wounds in the abdomen.
“The incision or stab wound on the lung injury is impossible to have been self-inflicted. The depth of the incision from the abdomen to the lung demonstrated that one could not have thrust an object that deep to reach the lungs on their own. It was not self-inflicted,” he said during cross-examination.
The appellate court noted that Nderitu did not deny the offence but readily accepted that he and his wife brew “chang’aa” to make a living.
On the fateful day, he returned home in the evening to collect more brew for customers, but his wife prevented him from leaving the house. He slapped her and she fell on the floor as she screamed, attracting the attention of her sisters, a brother, and two nephews. One of the brothers hit him as his wife held him.
“Then my wife took a knife and stabbed me on my left eyebrow. I got eight stitches on that eye. The sisters and brother on seeing that also started beating me. I could not open my eyes because blood was oozing from the left eye," he had told the court.
"They all came with huge sticks, which we use to make the brew and started beating me. I held the deceased so that she could not stab me again. She pushed herself from me and stabbed herself in the stomach,” he had testified.
According to Nderitu, his in-laws started the fight. He produced a medical treatment card and a receipt from Mother and Child Hospital as evidence.