Embu: Court frees woman accused of killing her husband’s lover

The High Court in Embu on Wednesday acquitted a woman accused of stabbing her husband’s lover to death in 2013.

Judge Florence Muchemi set Benedita Gacugu free citing lack of evidence in the case that has dragged on for the last six years.

In her ruling, Justice Muchemi said the eight witnesses called by the prosecution did not corroborate their evidence, therefore, it was not convincing to warrant her to convict the accused.

The judge pointed out that owing to the contradiction of the sequence of events by the witnesses, the charges against the accused were not proved beyond any reasonable doubt and thus she had no alternative but to set her free.

The suspect’s lawyer Momanyi Gichuki had argued that the prosecution witnesses could not substantiate that they saw the suspect murder the deceased, thus asking the court to dismiss the case and acquit his client.

The accused had been charged that on May 7, 2013 at Kabogua Ka Nyama Market in Mbeere North Sub-county in Embu County she murdered Nicoleta Mugwe.

The suspect’s husband, Amos Njuki, had told the court that he was doing shopping at Ishiara Market at around 7.30pm when he suddenly saw his wife emerge with a knife and stabbed the deceased, who sat outside a nearby shop.

He told the court that the victim died on the spot before the suspect fled.

Njuki said he decided to spend the night at a friend’s house before returning to his home the following morning where he found his estranged wife.

He said he alerted the area chief about the previous day murder incident and his wife was arrested and booked at Isiara Police post before she was charged with the offense.

Some of the witnesses claimed to have heard the accused complaining that the deceased was having an affair with her husband and that she (accused) planned to murder her.