12-year-old boy murders his 11-year-old ‘girlfriend’

The High Court found the boy guilty of murder. He denied the charge and Justice Meoli directed that he be held at Engineer Police station in Kinangop until the 28th of July when the case will come up for mentioning.
However, the court ruled that the accused was experiencing a difficult childhood in a dysfunctional family and sent him to Kimumu junior probation hostels for three years. In his defence the boy, who was represented by lawyer Francis Mburu, said dark forces directed him to stab the girl.

The boy told the court that he was getting intimate with the girl when a tall man armed with a machete and a shiny knife appeared and ordered him to kill her. After stabbing the girl, the boy confessed to her sister.
But in her ruling, the court dismissed the boy’s defence describing it as incredible. The judge ruled that from evidence adduced in court, the girl could have rebuffed the boy’s advances leading to the fatal attack.
Meoli noted that minutes before she died, the girl told her relatives the person who had stabbed her.
On the accused defence that a mysterious man dressed in a dark cap appeared to him before the incident, the judge termed it as fiction and an invention of the minor.

She added that during the trial, the boy was careful to cover any loopholes describing him as having a fertile but corrupted imagination. “The accused defence is unbelievable, conjured to absolve him and the prosecution has proven the case beyond any reasonable doubt,” she said. The judge noted that it would be unfair to return the minor back to the harsh background that he had been raised in, adding that he need counseling and education.
There is no need to send the boy back to the dysfunctional background but to a place where he can be rehabilitated,” she ruled.