The High Court in Nairobi has sentenced a 37-year-old man to death for the abduction and murder of Sarah Akello Aruwa, a final-year student at the United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa), bringing to a close a case that has dragged on for 14 years.

Justice Kanyi Kimondo handed the sentence to Duncan Livingstone Kimathi, a former student at the same university, after earlier finding him guilty of murder contrary to Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) announced the sentence, which was reported by Capital FM and other outlets on Thursday.

Lured to a meeting

The court heard that Akello, an International Relations student, was killed between June 30 and July 1, 2012, in the Kiamako area of Githunguri, Kiambu County.

According to the ODPP, on the day she disappeared she told a friend she was going to meet a man she had come across at the university library. She had written the name 'Daniel Muriithi' and a phone number in her notebook. The court found that Kimathi did not know anyone by that name and concluded the identity had been used as bait to lure her.

A post-mortem examination established that she died of neck compression through manual strangulation, Citizen Digital reported.

Ransom calls from her phone

Her mother, Hellen Atieno Aruwa, told the court that a man called her using her daughter's mobile phone and demanded a ransom. She said she haggled the amount down to Sh70,000 before reporting the matter at Kasarani Police Station.

Akello's boyfriend testified that when he tried to call her, a man picked up and demanded that Sh100,000 be sent to her mobile money account.

Detectives later recovered some of her clothing, including a blood-stained top, from a house in Savannah estate where Kimathi's girlfriend lived. The girlfriend, who was charged as the second accused, absconded after being released on bail and the court ordered that the trial proceed in her absence.

A circumstantial case

The prosecution called 17 witnesses. With no one having seen the abduction or the killing, the case rested largely on circumstantial and electronic evidence linking the accused to the victim's phone, a car and the ransom demands.

In his judgment, Justice Kimondo said the evidence showed the student had been deliberately drawn into a trap for abduction and ransom before she was killed, and that the circumstances proved malice aforethought.

Kimathi has the right to appeal against both the conviction and the sentence. Although Kenyan courts still hand down the death penalty, no execution has been carried out in the country since 1987.

Photos: Wing via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0); Citizen Digital/ODPP. Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.