A former United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) student has been sentenced to death for murdering his colleague after luring her into a trap, abducting her and demanding a Sh100,000 ransom from her family. High Court Judge Kanyi Kimondo sentenced Duncan Livingstone Kimathi, 37, after finding him guilty of murdering Sarah Akello Aruwa, a final-year International Relations student, in June 2012.
The court found that Kimathi had deliberately lured Ms Akello into a trap before she was abducted and later strangled. The prosecution presented direct, circumstantial, electronic and documentary evidence linking him to the crime. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) called 17 witnesses to prove the case, which centred on the victim’s disappearance, ransom demands made to her family and the subsequent discovery of her body in Ngewa, Githunguri, Kiambu County.
In his judgment, Justice Kimondo said the evidence left no doubt about Kimathi’s involvement in the abduction and killing. The judge dismissed Kimathi’s defence, finding that his account, including his alibi, was inconsistent with the evidence presented by the prosecution. The court held that Ms Akello died as a direct consequence of his unlawful actions and that the “entire corpus of direct, circumstantial, electronic and documentary evidence points irresistibly to his guilt”.
The court heard that Ms Akello disappeared on June 30, 2012, after telling her friend, Ivy Gathu, that she was going to meet a man she had previously encountered at the university library. Before leaving, she had written in her notebook that she intended to meet a man identified as Daniel Mureithi and recorded a mobile phone number that was not registered. Justice Kimondo found that the name was part of a plan to conceal the identity of the person who had arranged to meet her.
The court further found that Kimathi had access to the USIU-Africa campus and an opportunity to lure the deceased, despite his denial that he had been a student at the institution. Electronic evidence and the timeline of events led the court to conclude that the unregistered telephone line used to communicate with the deceased was being operated by Kimathi or his accomplices. Ms Akello’s mother, Hellen Atieno Aruwa, testified that she received a call from a man using her daughter’s mobile phone who demanded Sh100,000 for her release and threatened to kill her if the money was not paid.
The family eventually negotiated the ransom down to Sh70,000. The deceased’s boyfriend also told the court that when he tried calling her phone, a man answered and demanded that Sh100,000 be sent to her mobile money account. A postmortem examination established that she had sustained a laceration at the back of her head and bruises on her neck. The medical examination determined that she died from neck compression through manual strangulation.
During cross-examination, Kimathi admitted that he had previously been charged and convicted in a Makadara court for abducting a girl in 2012. The High Court found that the prosecution had established the elements of murder, including malice aforethought, and convicted him under Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code. Kimathi's girlfriend, Winnie Wairimu Kariuki, who was the second accused in the case, absconded after being released on bail and her trial will proceed in her absence.
Key points
- Duncan Livingstone Kimathi, 37, was sentenced to death for murdering Sarah Akello Aruwa, a final-year International Relations student, in June 2012.
- The court found that Kimathi had deliberately lured Ms Akello into a trap before she was abducted and later strangled.
- The prosecution presented direct, circumstantial, electronic and documentary evidence linking Kimathi to the crime.
