Justice at last? Yassin Moyo's murder trial to start

Yassin Moyo, 13 years old, was perched on his apartment balcony at Shauri Moyo on March 30, 2020, when he was hit by a bullet to his stomach.

Before the incident which left the boy dead, he was watching as police patrolled the streets enforcing the Covid-19 curfew.

A day later on March 31, Yassin's friends and relatives somberly gathered at Kariokor Muslim Cemetery where they laid him to rest.

The stray bullet that struck Yassin was allegedly fired by police officer Dancun Ndema.

In June 2020, Ndema was charged with the teenager's murder before Justice Luka Kimaru but he denied having committed the offence.

The court released him on a cash bail of Sh1 million with a condition he does not interfere with the witnesses lined up to testify against him.

He was charged after an investigation by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

Ndiema is said to have been in uniform when he committed the crime. He is also believed to have had an Israeli pistol loaded with 10 rounds of ammunition.

The Prosecution has 19 witnesses, where 14 are eyewitnesses while the others are circumstantial.

Some three years and almost seven months later, the hearing of the case is set to start on Wednesday.

"We are expecting the hearing of the Yassin Moyo case to start today #JusticeForYassin," the International Justice Mission - Kenya said on Xplatform earlier on Wednesday.

Prior to the October 11, hearing date, the trial was set to commence on January 23 to March 2023 but it did not.

Before then, it was to start in January 2022 but failed to proceed owing to the absence of the defence counsel Danstan Omari.

Back then, the court heard that Omari was held up in another case in Mombasa.

Before his murder, Yassin was a Class 8 pupil at Ndururuno Primary School and, like other pupils, he was home after schools were closed to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Today, Yassin would have been 16 years old.