Kithimani Court Issues Capital Punishment in Brutal Robbery Case

A court in Kithimani, Machakos County, on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, sentenced a man to death for the violent robbery of former Yatta Member of Parliament Charles Kilonzo's mother. The convicted man, Josephat Mutuku Kasyema, was found guilty of attacking 80-year-old Agnes Njeri Kilonzo in her home in the Ndarani area on December 8, 2023. The attack was described by the prosecution as so vicious it caused Ms. Kilonzo to lose her ability to speak.

According to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), Mr. Kasyema assaulted Ms. Kilonzo with a panga before tying her up and robbing her of a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone valued at KSh 15,000 and an unspecified amount of cash. Prosecutors Fred Nderitu, Lydia Wang'ombe, and James Gachoka successfully argued that the evidence proved the accused committed the offence beyond a reasonable doubt. The court found that the severity of the assault, which included inflicting cuts to the victim's head, warranted the ultimate penalty.

The Legal Context of the Death Penalty in Kenya

The sentence was handed down under Section 296(2) of the Penal Code, which prescribes the death penalty for robbery with violence. This specific law mandates capital punishment for anyone who, during a robbery, is armed with a dangerous weapon, is in the company of one or more others, or uses personal violence. While the sentence has been passed, its execution is highly unlikely. Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987, making it a de facto abolitionist state. According to a 2024 report by Amnesty International, Kenyan courts sentenced 131 people to death in 2023, an increase from 79 in 2022.

This sentencing occurs against a backdrop of significant legal and executive actions regarding capital punishment. In a landmark 2017 ruling in the case of Francis Karioko Muruatetu & another v Republic, the Supreme Court of Kenya declared the mandatory death penalty for murder unconstitutional, as it denied judges sentencing discretion. However, this ruling was later clarified to apply specifically to murder cases, leaving the mandatory death sentence for other capital offences like robbery with violence legally intact.

Presidential Commutations and Abolition Efforts

Successive Kenyan presidents have regularly commuted death sentences to life imprisonment. In 2009, President Mwai Kibaki commuted the sentences of 4,000 prisoners on death row. President Uhuru Kenyatta followed suit in 2016, commuting the sentences of all 2,747 death row inmates at the time. More recently, in 2023, President William Ruto commuted the sentences of all prisoners sentenced to death before November 2022 to life imprisonment.

Furthermore, there is a growing legislative push towards formally abolishing capital punishment. In late 2023, several bills were introduced in Parliament seeking to amend the Penal Code, the Prisons Act, and other laws to remove the death penalty from the statutes. These efforts reflect a broader trend and a long-standing debate within the country's legal and human rights circles about the place of capital punishment in a modern democracy. This latest sentence from the Kithimani court thus highlights the continuing tension between the letter of the law for crimes like violent robbery and the nation's established practice of avoiding executions.