KENGA KAINGU MWENI, HAMISI KATANA & KARISA CHENGO V. REPUBLIC
(1997) JELR 104674 (CA)
Court of Appeal
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Criminal Appeal 42 of 1997
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17 Jul 1997
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Kenya
Coram
Riaga Samuel Cornelius Omolo JA
Akilano Molade Akiwumi JA
Abdulrasul Ahmed Lakha JA
Judgement
<p class="ql-align-center">JUDGMENT OF THE COURT</p><p class="ql-align-justify">This appeal must be allowed partly because of the terrible state of the record of appeal which makes the trial defective and also because of the elementary legal errors committed by the learned trial judge, Ang’awa J.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">The appellants have appealed against the conviction and consequent sentences of death passed upon them on 14<sup>th</sup> February, 1997, by the learned trial judge of the High Court on a charge of murder that they jointly with others not before the court, had murdered an old woman, one Masika Kiti. It is true that the record of proceedings contain several typographical mistakes, but apart from these, there occur in the evidence of the alleged eyewitnesses to the killing of Masika Kiti, many incomplete and meaningless sentences and passages and serious misdescriptions of persons which can only be blamed on the learned judge, and which render the evidence of these eyewitnesses worthless. This was also due to the fact, and this can also be blamed on the learned ju…</p>