A Kenyan woman who was accused of assaulting and killing her husband during a domestic brawl has been acquitted of murder charge by a court.
Naomi Njoki was accused of killing her husband, David Njogu on August 3, 2019 , by using a piece of wood to hit him on the head and chest as well chopping his private part using a knife.
According to Nation Kenya, Njogu was found lying in a pool of blood inside their rented single room at Free Area estatein Nakuru, with multiple stab wounds on his head, fracture of the left thigh and a chopped manhood.
The incident which angered the neighbours saw them descend on the wife Naomi Njoki in their bid to deliver instant mob justice before she was rescued by the police.
Both were rushed to the Nakuru Level five hospital where the woman was treated and discharged. The man was however not lucky as he succumbed to the injuries.
The Police who attributed his death to the earlier fight immediately arrested the woman and charged her with his murder. Free Area Location Chief Stephen Macharia, who was among the first to respond to distress calls by neighbours, testified in court and said he found the man lying unconscious on the floor bleeding from the head while his trousers were pulled down.
Government pathologist Titus Ngulungu who conducted the postmortem established that the cause of death was massive blood loss due fatal stab on the head and penis glans using a sharp object.
But fast forward to 2022, Ms Njoki is free after she was acquitted of the charges by the court. According to Justice Teresia Matheka the Police are to blame for the acquittal of the suspect after failing to establish a case against the suspect.
The judge faulted the police decisions of being in a rush to charge a suspect before having gathered enough evidence to sustain the charge.
“This case is a classic example of the failure by the investigators to investigate the case and to proceed to charge the first and obvious suspect, without anything to clutch on. The mere fact that the accused and the husband had quarrelled earlier did not make the case open and shut,” noted the judge.
She continued “At least there ought to have been an attempt at investigations to establish whether it was actually the accused who had inflicted the fatal injuries.”
“From the foregoing, it is evident that the prosecution established that there was a murder, but as for the person who committed it, the prosecution brought the accused to court on the basis of suspicion,” she ruled.
