A 56-year-old man recently regained his freedom after being imprisoned after being accused of attempting to defile a 5-year-old girl. The mentally unstable man identified as Mr Macharia Kiama, was released last week in Kenya, after appealing against a 10-year sentence for attempting to defile a five-year-old girl.
But the man had already spent three years at the King’ong’o GK Prison in Kenya.
His brother, Mwangi Kiama, says he was born deaf and mute, and that in 1992 he developed a mental condition that drew children to him. In June 2014, as a five-year-old girl was playing with him, holding his hands at the local shopping centre, her mother, who ran an eatery, ran towards them screaming, accusing Kibaaya of molesting her daughter.
Mr Kiama adds that the woman had complained that his brother, who spent a lot of time at the shopping centre, was a nuisance. “That was the basis of the criminal case,” he says.
The incident was reported to police and Kibaaya was arrested, tried and convicted.
Efforts to get the mother of the alleged victim for a comment were futile, since she had moved without telling anyone where she was going.
Allowing Kibaaya’s appeal, Justice Matheka noted that Kenya’s criminal justice system is currently ill placed to deal with a disability like his.