- Justice Reuben Nyakundi of the High Court in Lodwar found that Wayne Sadam, a refugee from South Sudan, was properly convicted and sentenced by the magistrate's court.
- The particulars were that on January 2, 2022, at around 7pm, he jointly with others robbed Francine Ndaviyenurukiye of a mobile phone making Infinix Hot 5 valued at Sh10,700.
Image: FILE
A refugee who was found guilty of robbing a girl of an Infinix phone worth Sh10,700 in the Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana county will serve 20 years in jail after the High Court upheld his conviction and sentence.
Justice Reuben Nyakundi of the High Court in Lodwar found that Wayne Sadam, a refugee from South Sudan, was properly convicted and sentenced by the magistrate's court.
Sadam had been charged with robbery with violence.
The particulars were that on January 2, 2022, at around 7pm, he jointly with others robbed Francine Ndaviyenurukiye of a mobile phone making Infinix Hot 5 valued at Sh10,700.
The offence was committed within the Kakuka Refugee Camp in Turkana West subcounty. Prosecutors said Sadam used actual violence on Ndaviyenurukiye.
Ndaviyenurukiye who testified as the first prosecution witness said she had been sent to get her father's phone from charging. On her way back home, she was attacked by three men.
One of them hit her with human fists as he held her by the neck while the other two ransacked her pockets and they picked up the phone and ran away.
But she struggled with the one who was holding her and grabbed his belt as she screamed for help.
A woman came by and the girl asked her for help but she ran away. The attacker was in the meantime dragging her away towards a bush.
The woman who passed by was called Agnes. She had run away to call Ndaviyenurukiye's mother. The two came and found the girl struggling with her attacker.
They pounced on him but the man pleaded that he be left to go and bring back the stolen phone from his friends.
Many people had by then converged at the scene.
The attacker, Sadam, claimed he was from the Dinka Community before changing to Nuer. Both tribes are from South Sudan.
He also claimed to have been staying at Kakuma 1 before changing to Hong Kong within the refugee camp.
Police arrived and he was taken into custody.
After a full trial at the Kakuma law courts, Sadam was found guilty by principal magistrate Charles Mayamba and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
But he moved to the High Court challenging both the conviction and the sentence.
It was his argument that the trial magistrate erred in law and in facts by failing to observe that none of the prosecution witnesses identified the accused in the instant case.
He also claimed that it was wrong to be convicted yet none of the stolen exhibits were availed before the trial court. Finally, he claimed that the magistrate failed to consider his defence.
"I have had the occasion to peruse the record as well as the comprehensive judgment of the trial court and I wholly agree with the findings of the trial court that the elements of robbery with violence were properly established and as such the conviction was proper," Justice Nyakundi said in his judgment delivered on August 23.
On the sentencing, the judge said the magistrate considered all the factors in arriving at the 20-year jail term.
" The sentence is hereby upheld and the sentence shall run from the date of conviction, that is July 7, 2022. It is so ordered."