Noordin Haji, the Director of Public Prosecution has asked the High Court to uphold the death sentence imposed on two high school students over the murder of the Narok taxi driver.
The DPP, through senior Principal counsel Duncan Ondimu, wants the death sentence imposed on Bashir Ibrahim and Ibrahim Abdullahi alias Alushi by the trial court in 2020 upheld.
“Considering the circumstances the deceased met his gruesome death, Bashir and Ibrahim do not deserve any mercy from this court and any other court including the court of public opinion, the appellants do not deserve mercy even a shred of it. The two appellants deserve nothing else other than death,” Ondimu told the court.
He told Justice Francis Gikonyo that taking into account all the evidence on record, the Prosecution did discharge its burden and prosecution evidence tendered in court was not in any way discrediting the convicts' defense during cross-examination.
Ondimu further submitted that the sentence was proper and urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lack of merits and maintain the sentence by the trial court.
The two were sentenced to death after the court found them guilty of violently robbing the taxi driver Richard Samiren, his motor vehicle valued at Sh1.2 million and his mobile phone valued at Sh15,000 and killed him.
Ondimu dismissed claims by Bashir that he was a student at Fanaka Secondary School in Narok while Ibrahim was studying at Nkareta Secondary School.
He rejected the claim that there were contradictions and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.
“They are minor and did not go to the root of the prosecution case hence this court should ignore them. The minor inconsistencies (if any) were satisfactorily explained and the record of appeal clearly reflects that prosecution witnesses were truthful,” Ondimu told Justice Gikonyo.
Ondimu urged the court to ignore the prisoner's move to contest his death sentence, adding that sentencing is a crucial aspect of the Criminal justice system.
Judge Gikonyo heard that section 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CPC) provides that the court may before passing a sentence or making an order against an accused person, receive such evidence as it sees fit in order to inform itself as to the sentence or order properly to be passed or made.
In 2020, Narok chief magistrate Wilbroda Juma said she noted the mitigation but agreed with the prosecution that justice had to be served on a family that lost a loved one in such an inhuman manner.
Solomon Njeri, who was 17 and a student at Fanaka Secondary School when the offence was committed, was in June 2016 sentenced to serve three years in a correctional institution after he pleaded guilty to the charges.
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