Officers charged with Kwekwe Mwandazas murder appeal ruling

Two police officers who were found guilty in the murder of 14-year-old Kwekwe Mwandaza and sentenced to 7 years in prison have appealed the sentence in a Mombasa court.

The two officers, Inspector Veronica Gitahi and Issa Mzee asked lower court judges Asike Makhandia, William Ouko and Kathurima Inoti, to block the deceased’s mother and uncle from being enjoined in the appeal.

The ruling is expected to be delivered on the 17th of next month.

In February 2016, the High Court sitting in Mombasa sentenced the two police officers to seven years in jail each after they were found guilty of ‘killing’ 14-year-old schoolgirl Kwekwe Mwandaza at Kinango in Kwale County.

In an earlier judgment, Justice Martin Muya had also found the duo guilty of misusing their rifles when they shot the girl at her parent’s home during a raid in pursuit of her uncle, George Zani, who was wanted for alleged murder.

Justice Muya had further ruled that, there was gross omission on the part of the accused persons, who failed to establish the occupants of the house, before they carried out their raid.

Justice Muya, however, noted that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had intention of murdering Kwekwe which reduced their murder charge to manslaughter.

During the trial, the two officers who are alleged to have jointly murdered the schoolgirl maintained that they had acted in self-defense when they came under attack after storming a house in Kinango where Mwandaza was asleep.

Police initially claimed Kwekwe attacked officers with a machete wounding one of them and destroying a gun.

Two minors, said to have been present at the time of the killing, testified that the deceased had pleaded incessantly for her life, a plea that they say fell on deaf ears.