JUDGMENT
The appellant was convicted of handling a stolen motor car by dishonestly retaining it, knowing or having reason to believe it to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained, by a Resident Magistrate at Eldoret. He was sentenced to the mandatory minimum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. He appealed to the High Court but his appeal was dismissed. There is no doubt as to the facts in this case, the only question on this second appeal being whether the conviction was correct in law. We allowed the appeal on March 24, 1982, quashed the conviction and set aside the sentence and we now give our reasons.
The facts are that the car was stolen in Eldoret in October, 1974 by armed men who took it to Uganda. The appellant was not one of the thieves; he is a Sudanese businessman who was living in Uganda at the time. He came into possession of the car two years later, when he bought it, through a friend, at a police sale of lost or abandoned cars at Mbale in Uganda. He had re-registered it…