This archive report was first published on 2 August 2019.
On August 2, 2019, a Kenyan court handed down a 20-year sentence to Elvis Wafula Wasike, a convict who had been serving a life imprisonment term for defiling an 8-year-old girl.
Justice Jesse Njagi, who presided over the case, stated that Wafula was a young man at the time of the offense and should not spend the rest of his life incarcerated.
Wafula was found guilty of defiling the girl on July 12, 2015, in Mumias East sub-county. The girl had been left under Wafula's care as their farmboy for around six months.
According to the court records, the girl told her mother that Wafula had called her to the kitchen, where he raped her. The girl's mother later took her to Makunga Dispensary, where tests revealed that she had been defiled.
Wafula had initially denied the allegations, stating that the girl's mother had coerced her into making the claims. However, he was found guilty and handed a mandatory life penalty, which he appealed.
