They drugged and defiled a 15-year-old girl now they will spend life in prison
Lamu Principal Magistrate Temba Sitati argued that if the two men were allowed to walk scot-free in Lamu, this would have an adverse impact on other schoolchildren.
On May 30, Said Mzee Bunu (alias Ziro) and Abdulrahman Hassan Dara (alias Goris) woke up early in their Hidabo village in Lamu County with a plan to commit a crime.
Had they known that their action would land them in jail for life, they would have reconsidered their plans.
On that day, the two hid in a bush in Hidabo waiting for their target, a 15-year-old schoolgirl they knew used a particular route to school from Kashmir village.
The told a Lamu court that she had known Goris from her village and had met him many times as he always passed by her house.
The same applied to Ziro, who she said hailed from the same village and was a regular visitor to her father’s house.
She told Lamu Principal Magistrate Temba Sitati that Goris jumped on her and covered her mouth before Ziro lunged on her and injected an unknown substance into her neck with a syringe.
Moments later, she lost consciousness.
She regained consciousness in a hospital bed and discovered that she had been defiled and dumped at Shella beach.
Her father reported the matter to the police and the men were arrested and charged with gang defilement, contrary to Section 10 of the Sexual Offences Act.
They faced a second count of committing an indecent act with a child, contrary to Section 11(1) of the Sexual Offences Act.
The two denied the charges and represented themselves in the trial.
Last month, the court found Goris and Ziro guilty of gang defilement.
Delivering the sentence on Thursday, Mr Sitati said the court had received a victim impact statement in which the complainant said she now fears men and is terrified when she sees them.
She suffered physical, emotional and psychological trauma that preliminary counselling had not alleviated, although she received medical treatment for the injuries to her private parts and body.
The attack on her had followed the death of her mother, who left her in the care of her loving father.
Recorded evidence showed that her father temporarily lost his mind when he received the news that she had been defiled and dumped near the Indian Ocean.
The court said he was a secondary victim.
The child also experienced repeated headaches from the side effects of the unknown drugs that the assailants injected into her.
The victim also lost her self-esteem and the director of children’s services in Lamu recommended that she be relocated to another county to help her heal.
The court heard that she lags behind in her schoolwork as she fears going to school without being escorted.
Mr Sitati argued that if the two men were allowed to walk scot-free in Lamu, this would have an adverse impact on other schoolchildren.
He said residents and children of Lamu will only be safe if the two were removed from the community to deter a repeat of the same offence and to discourage like-minded offenders.
Mr Sitati also considered that the two men were not remorseful.
They also had several pending criminal complaints against them.
The victims in those cases were threatened and had to abandon their pursuit of justice.
“As a result, the court passes the following sentence, that each convict is declared to be a dangerous sexual offender. Each convict is sentenced to serve life imprisonment, which will deny them another chance to ever terrorise the children of Lamu and Kenya in the future,” Mr Sitati said.
He added: “They defiled this child and attempted to murder her and then dumped her like garbage by throwing her into the Indian Ocean’s shores so that she could be [washed] away by the ocean tides, but she was rescued just before the tides had risen high to carry her away.
“This must never be allowed to recur and the message to like-minded offenders must be clear.”
The convicts have 14 days to appeal the sentence.
