Three Kenyans and a former Venezuelan first secretary will spend 20 years in prison for killing the ambassador of the Latin American country more than a decade ago.
This was after the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of Ahmed Mujivane Omido, Alex Sifuna Wanyonyi and Moses Kiprotich Kalya and Venezuelan Dwight Sagaray.
The four convicts were sentenced to 20 years each for killing Olga Fonseca , two weeks after being posted in Kenya.
In fact, Justices Abida Ali-Aroni, Lydia Achode and John Mativo said the four prisoners escaped with a lenient sentence and they would have enhanced it had the prosecution filed a cross-appeal.
“The circumstances of this case, taken cumulatively, form a chain that leaves no doubt in our minds that the 1st appellant (Dwight), Mohammed (Hassan and who is still at large), 2nd, 3rd and 4th appellants (Omido, Sifuna and Kiprotich) were involved in hatching, planning and executing the murder together,” said the judges.
Muhammed Ahmed Mohammed Hassan, who was wanted by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Nairobi Area in connection with the murder of of the late charge d’affaires at the Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi Olga Fonsesca July 31, 2012. COURTESY
The court said the mastermind, Dwight and Mohammed, roped in Omido who recruited his two friends, Sifuna and Kiprotich to execute the murder.
The judges said the evidence tabled in court showed that Dwight did not take it well when Ms Olga was posted as the new ambassador as he had hoped to be promoted.
The court said Dwight created a fight between Olga and the domestic workers, he did not want her at the residence and blocked the landlord’s representative from accessing her.
Further, Dwight did not introduce her to the staff at the office or residence and he did not give her all the keys to the house, which then explains how the kitchen door was opened, thus giving access to the assailants.
“The hostile reception arising from the 1st appellant’s (Dwight’s) disappointment led to the plot by him and his associate Mohammed initially having the deceased rejected as the ambassador, which seemed to have failed, culminating in the deceased's elimination,” the court said.
“For the heinous crime, the appellants were only sentenced to serve a very lenient sentence of 20 years in prison. In our view, considering the gravity of the offence, we would have considered enhancing the sentence,” the judges said.
Ms Olga Fonseca was found murdered on July 27, 2012. She died of strangulation.
Her horrific death was a shock to many given that the leafy suburb of Runda is a well guarded place.
She was discovered dead when the security company manning the ambassador’s residence went to change the day guard as she had requested the previous day.
Ms Olga had arrived in Kenya hardly two weeks before her untimely death as the new ambassador for Venezuela.
Ms Olga Fonseca, former Venezuela envoy who was murdered on July 26, 2012 at the embassy in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
And from the evidence presented in court, there was a power struggle between her and Dwight, who was the first secretary at the embassy and who had been overseeing the embassy after the previous ambassador was recalled.
The court was told of how Dwight was unhappy with her posting to head the mission as she received a hostile reception both at the residence where she was not introduced to the domestic staff as the new ambassador, to the office where she was not formally introduced, or had an official handover of the embassy business or bank accounts.
The court was informed that in the office, there was a clear struggle between the two of them over who was in charge, including who was to control the finances of the embassy.
Both (Olga and Dwight) wrote to the bank claiming to be the rightful signatory to the embassy accounts.
The prosecution argued that Mohammed, a close friend of Dwight, in cahoots with the first secretary, engaged Omido, who in turn recruited his friends, Sifuna and Kiprotich, and who jointly planned and executed the plan on the night of July 26, 2012.
In the appeal, Dwight said none of the prosecution witnesses testified to having seen him at the ambassador's residence on the material day or the evening get-together at the ambassador’s residence.
He denied having opposed Olga as the new ambassador or having discussed with Mohammed any scheme to kill her and maintained that he was not aware of any such plan.
Dwight said he was convicted on suspicion and that the fact that he differed with the ambassador did not mean he was the possible suspect.
Omido denied that he was paid Sh468,000 to eliminate Olga.
Kiprotich, a retired General Service Unit (GSU) officer, discarded a confession he had made to the police, hatching the plan to kill the ambassador.
Kiprotich said he only stated to the police that Mohammed wanted to engage Omido and Sifuna to do the killing but he declined and convinced his friends to drop the plans.
The judges said there was a convergence of the issues raised in the statement of Sifuna and Kiprotich and the retracted confession the former GSU officer made, cannot be wished away as a coincidence.
“The similarities are too prominent. The confession speaks of the ambassador making life difficult for the employees. The similarity of the evidence is too much of a coincidence. The confession could not have been cooked up, as the appellants would like the court to believe,” the judges said.
The appellate court dismissed defence advanced by Dwight that he was stripped of his diplomatic immunity illegally.
The judge said the Venezuelan was stripped of his diplomatic status by the sending country, and his mission to Kenya terminated and his diplomatic passport cancelled.
“Cumulatively, the termination of the 1st appellant’s services at the mission and cancellation of his diplomatic status mean that he no longer enjoyed the diplomatic status that goes with diplomatic immunity,” the judges added.
