A middle-aged man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Garissa High Court for the murder of his employer in May 2023.
Appearing before High Court Judge Justice John Onyiego, Antony Murithi Nyaga was charged with the murder of Hassan Salat Mohamed, under Section 203 read with 204 of the Penal Code.
According to the deceased’s relatives, Nyaga had been employed by their kin for nine years prior to committing the crime.
Nyaga was employed at a quarry-mining site in Mandera County before the government imposed a ban on such activities due to increased insecurity caused by Al-Shabaab terrorists.
After the ban, his employer, Hassan Salat Mohamed is said to have asked him to take leave until the ban was lifted, but instead, the accused attacked him.
He killed him by hitting him on the head, then buried him in a shallow grave before fleeing to his home county, Embu, where he was arrested and arraigned in Garissa court.
While sentencing the accused, the court noted that the accused did not show any remorse and had abused his employer’s trust.
In support of the case, the prosecution called 11 witnesses.
“In this case I have considered the circumstances under which the offense was committed, I have also considered the negative pre-sentencing plot prepared, the accused person is not remorseful and the offense committed is very serious,” the Judge ruled.
“The manner and style in which the offense was committed was brutal and inhuman, the accused person abused his employer’s trust, and cut off his source of income,” he added.
Abdirizack Salat, a niece of the deceased, while welcoming the ruling, was quick to express that the suspect should have been handed a longer jail term.
“As a family we are happy that justice has finally been served to us as a family. Even though we would have really wished to see the victim handed at least 50 years or even a life sentence because of what he did,” Salat said.
Salat further stated that they would challenge any efforts by the accused to appeal the judgment, emphasizing that as a family, they were still struggling to heal from the tragic incident, even two years later.
On her part, Sumeya Hassan Salat, the daughter of the deceased, shared that it had been two years of immense suffering and mental anguish since her father’s death. Struggling to control her tears, Sumeya revealed that life had never been the same since her father was murdered.
“As family we know that we will never have our father back because whatever happened is irreversible but at least we take solace from the fact that as a family we got justice from our courts,” a visibly emotional Sumeya said.
