A court in Machakos County has sentenced a man to 20 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of shooting a Kenya Power staff member with an arrow while on official duty.

The Kithimani Magistrate Court heard that Kioko Kavita shot Esau Ogutu Mbadi on June 7, 2024 at Kithendu Village in Yatta Sub-County.

He was charged with unlawfully attempting to cause the death of Esau by shooting him on the right side below the ribs with a bow and arrow.

The complainant was among the Kenya Power staff assigned to prune trees that had encroached on power facilities at Kithendu Village when the accused person attacked him.

The court heard that when the officers reached the home of the accused person, they saw an avocado tree, which, according to them, was the cause to the persistent power outage in the area since it was interfering with fuses.

The accused person was informed of the danger of the tree, and he was requested to allow them to cut down the tree, which, according to the witnesses, he refused and threatened to attack anyone who would cut down the tree.

The officials told him that they would not leave since the village had no electricity. This is when the accused ran into his house and came back with bows and arrows. He retreated a few steps and shot the complainant with an arrow on the right side of the abdomen.

The complainant was later taken to Matuu Level 4 Hospital where a surgery to remove the lodged arrow was conducted.

While delivering his ruling, Principal Magistrate Wechuli noted that all the evidence from the five prosecution witnesses’ testimonies, which was not contested by the accused person, proves that the accused made and attempted to murder the complainant.

“His overt act of wilfully and carefully placing an arrow on a bow and shooting at the complainant means that he was in the process of killing the complainant. His actions do not amount to a mere preparation to commit the offence; he had put his plans in motion before he was restrained and his bow broken,” ruled Wechuli.

The court also found that if the accused person had not been restrained, he would have shot another arrow, which would have led to the complainant’s demise, since the evidence showed he was preparing to shoot a second arrow.

The court further noted that the complainant had no personal issue with the accused since he was just going about his work of ensuring that the power had been restored at Kithendu village.

“The accused, on the other hand, had let his tree interfere with the said power line, thus affecting the entire village. For him to turn around and attack the complainant so viciously is unfortunate and barbaric, and he deserves a deterrent sentence,” noted Wechuli.

In meting out the sentence, the court factored in the time he spent in custody and ordered that he shall serve 20 years imprisonment.