Ex-NTV reporter freed after ten years at Kamiti prison over murder of his wife
Ex-journalist Moses Otieno Dola is now a free man after the High Court released him from prison where he been serving a 10-year sentence for the murder of his wife, NTV investigative journalist Sarah Wambui Kabiru.
High Court Judge Alexander Muteti allowed Dola’s application for review and ordered the prison department to release Dola with immediate effect unless legally held because the time spent in custody and the time he was imprisoned added up to 10 years.
The ruling was delivered during a virtual session of the court.
Dola, who has enrolled at the Kenya School of Law, thanked the judge for allowing his application and said he would be happy to appear before the judge once he completes Law School.
Dola was convicted of manslaughter in 2018 over the murder of his wife, whom he was found guilty of killing in 2011.
He had previously been charged with murder before the court revised the sentence after he appealed and was charged with manslaughter before he was sentenced to prison for ten years.
The ex-NTV reporter had previously wanted the court to consider that the two years he served in remand be counted alongside the 10-year jail term so that he can be released in 2023 instead of 2025, but his request was denied by the court.
The life of the former reporter took a dramatic turn in 2011 after he was arrested and spent 627 days in remand awaiting trial before he was later granted a Sh1 million bail.
The bond was later cancelled by Justice Roselyn Nambuye, who ruled that the ex-journalist was a stronger party in the domestic dispute, which led to the death of the mother of his child.
In a testimony to the court, Dola said they argued, which turned physical with his late wife over loud music.
In the event, which he said was a split second, he said she hit her head on the bed and he did not realize that she had been injured even as she uttered her last words… “You have injured me.”
