Man who strangled wife for infecting him with HIV jailed 20 years
A seemingly open-and-shut case where a man confessed to murder took a twist after he recanted his testimony but the court upheld his conviction.
POO drove himself to Buruburu police station on the morning of June 9, 2015 and repeatedly told the officer at the desk, “Nimeua bibi yangu.”
He had used the chord of an iron box to strangle her to death.
Calm, composed and oblivious of the implication of the confession, the man asked the officer to come with him to his Phase 5 house to see the body of his wife, AMM, lying in the store, cold, and the iron box chord still on the neck.
His narrative in court suggests that he felt justified to strangle his wife of close to five years to death.
The man said AMM was his second wife, being a polygamous man. But the wife grew adulterous, bringing disease in the family.
Court testimony from witnesses show that AMM had increasingly normalised engaging in sex outside her marriage with multiple men and had even let her husband know. She promised to change but indulged again and again.
On June 8, 2015, she had gone to meet her ex-boyfriend at his house in Kahawa Sukari to revive the fading embers of their romantic relationship.
The ex-boyfriend was her college sweetheart but she had ditched him for POO, who was then the director of the college.
The husband tracked her down and as was often the case, she had one explanation or another.
The ex-boyfriend told the court that while they were together, AMM repeatedly received calls from POO outside the house but appeared restless and fearful. He did not know something awful was afoot.
Put on his defense, POO testified that he was a hotelier by profession, owned a hospitality college which he co-directed with AMM and that he was married with two families, the first one starting in 1998.