A high court in Kenya has sentenced a 24-year-old woman to death by hanging for killing her boyfriend.
Ruth Kamande was arrested in 2015 for the alleged crime and charged with murder when she was 21.
Kamande allegedly stabbed her 24-year-old boyfriend Farid Mohammed 25 times to death.
She has been in detention at the women’s jail in Nairobi, since her arrest.
Dubbed the prisoners’ beauty queen, Kamande told the court during testimony that her boyfriend threatened to kill her when she found out he was HIV-positive.
Kamande says she stabbed her boyfriend in self-defence.
“Mohammed told me that he would rather kill me and himself than have his status exposed. l stabbed him severally using a kitchen knife, which fell on my chest from his hands after I overpowered him, after putting my two thumbs in his eyes to save my life,” she said
But the high court Judge Jessie Lessit says Kamande appears to have taken pleasure in killing her boyfriend.
“She stabbed again and again and took pleasure in it. It wasn’t at a go, there were intervals,” the Judge said.
In a statement, rights group Amnesty International condemned the Kenya’s High Court decision. It called the death sentence “cruel, inhumane and outdated”.
Executive Director Irungu Houghton says “We are concerned that Kenya continues to use this cruel, inhumane and outdated mode of punishment”.
“This sentence is a blow to Kenya’s progressive record in commuting death sentences to terms of imprisonment” she added.
Local media Daily Nation however reports that Kamande’s punishment has been well received by Kenyans.
Source: Africafeeds.com
