The court sentenced Duncan Livingstone Kimathi to death for Sarah Akello Aruwa’s murder.
Justice Kanyi Kimondo sentenced Duncan Livingstone Kimathi after finding he helped lure Sarah Akello Aruwa into an abduction and ransom plot.
A court has sentenced Duncan Livingstone Kimathi, 37, to death in the Sarah Akello murder case. Justice Kanyi Kimondo found him guilty of killing his fellow student, Sarah Akello Aruwa, in 2012.
The killing occurred between June 30 and July 1 in Kiamako, Githunguri, Kiambu County. Akello was a final-year International Relations student at a Nairobi-based university.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions called 17 witnesses during the trial. Their evidence covered her abduction, demands for Sh100,000 in ransom and the circumstances surrounding her death.
Ransom demands in Sarah Akello murder case
The court found that Kimathi and his accomplices lured Akello before abducting her and demanding money from her family. In a statement on X, the ODPP also outlined her movements before she disappeared.
Akello told a friend she planned to meet a man she had previously encountered at the university library. Her mother, Hellen Atieno Aruwa, later received a call from a man using Akello’s phone.
He demanded Sh100,000 for her release. However, her mother negotiated the amount down to Sh70,000 before reporting the matter at Kasarani Police Station.
Akello’s boyfriend also testified that a man answered when he tried calling her phone. The caller demanded that he send Sh100,000 to Akello’s mobile money account as ransom.
Evidence and court findings
The court also examined a notebook in which Akello recorded plans to meet someone identified as Daniel Muriithi. She had written down his telephone contact.
However, the court established that Kimathi did not know Muriithi. It concluded that the identity formed part of the plan to lure Akello.
Investigators later recovered Akello’s underwear and a blood-stained top from a house in Savannah where Kimathi’s girlfriend, Wairimu, lived. The second accused subsequently absconded after release on bail, so the court directed proceedings to continue in her absence.
A postmortem examination found a wound at the back of Akello’s head and bruises on her neck. It established manual strangulation as the cause of death.
Justice Kimondo found that Kimathi acted with malice aforethought because the plot deliberately trapped Akello for abduction and ransom before her murder. He convicted Kimathi under Section 203, read with Section 204 of the Penal Code, and imposed the death sentence.
