Carjackers slapped with 30-year jail sentence
Two knife-wielding robbers who tied a taxi driver with a manila rope and then dumped him on a sewage manhole before fleeing with his car have each been slapped with a three-decade jail term.
Antony Ekai Mwaiti and Kennedy Karanja Mungai earned the jail terms upon being convicted by Milimani senior principal magistrate Bernard Ochoi.
Ochoi said the prosecution led by state prosecutor James Gachoka presented tangible evidence which placed the two armed robbers at the scene of the crime.
In his sentence, Ochoi said the two robbers hired Simon Michael Kanyi from Hilton Hotel where he picks and drops customers on March 3, 2016.
The two requested Kanyi to drop them at the Ole Sereni Hotel along Mombasa Road.
The convicts asked the cab driver to pass through the Southern by-pass enroute to their destiny.
He complied.
Ochoi said the robbers asked Kanyi to slow down as if they wanted to answer a call of nature, but it is when hell broke loose when Karanja threw the rope around the driver’s neck while Ekhai flashed out a knife from his pocket and threatened to end his life if he did not comply.
Kanyi attempted to wrestle the knife from Ekhai while Kanyi was fastening the rope around his neck.
“Ekhai threatened to kill Kanyi if he resisted,” Ochoi noted.
And to make good his threat Ekhai cut the fingers of Kanyi and blood splashed out.
They tied his legs and hands with the manila rope before dumping him in a sewage manhole.
Ochoi said the robbers took off with his taxi and a mobile phone all worth Sh552,000.
The robbers were arrested with the vehicle they robbed Kanyi at the junction of Muthaiga and Limuru Road the same day.
Police arrested the two when the vehicle stalled after fuel ran out.
They were arrested while waiting for a rider to avail fuel for them.
The convicts pleaded for mercy while Gachoka said the offence is serious calling for a harsh penalty.
Gachoka requested they be treated as first offenders.
Passing the sentence, the magistrate said, “the robbers committed a life-threatening crime and cared less what will befall the victim whom they left at the mercy of fate.”
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