Saturday, 22 March 2025 {HMC} A middle-aged man has been jailed by Garissa High Court for 30 years for the murder of his employer in May 2023.
Appearing before the high court judge, Justice John Onyiego, the accused, Anthony Murithi Nyaga, had been charged with the murder of Hassan Salat Mohamed, contrary to Section 203 read with 204 of the penal code.
According to the relatives of the deceased, Nyaga had been employed by their kin for 9 years before committing the offense.
Nyaga was employed at a quarry mining site before the government banned the activities in Mandera County following increased insecurity cases occasioned by Al Shabaab terrorists.
After the ban, his employer, Mohamed, is said to have asked him to take leave until the ban was lifted, but instead, the accused hit him on the head, killed him, and buried him in a shallow grave before escaping 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. Thus, in support of the case, the prosecution called 11 witnesses, leading to his conviction.
“I have considered the circumstances under which the offense was committed. I have also considered the negative pre-sentencing report prepared and the mitigation record. The accused person is not remorseful, and the offense committed is very serious,” the judge ruled.
“The accused person committed a brutal and inhuman offense, abused his employer’s trust, and cut off his income source; he deserved a deterrent sentence,” he added.
Abdirizack Salat, who was a nephew to the deceased, while welcoming the ruling, was, however, quick to add 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,” said Salat.
Salat further said that they will challenge any effort by the accused to appeal the judgement, saying that as a family they were yet to heal from the unfortunate incident, two years down the line.
On her part, Sumeya Hassan Salat, a daughter to the deceased, said that it has been two years of suffering and mental anguish since the passing on of her father.
Sumeya, who was struggling to control her tears, said that life has never been the same again since her father was murdered.
“As a 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.
By Erick Kyalo
