Ex-Kenyan governor convicted over murder of pregnant university student
Former Migori County Governor Okoth Obado has been convicted of the murder of 26-year-old pregnant university student Sharon Otieno, with whom he was involved in an affair.
Otieno’s body was discovered in a bush near a small town in western Kenya in 2018. She had sustained multiple stab wounds, and investigators also found signs suggesting she may have been sexually assaulted.
On Thursday, a Kenyan court found Obado and his two co-accused guilty of planning and carrying out the killing. The case drew nationwide attention and reignited concerns over violence against women in Kenya.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Cecilia Githua said Obado masterminded the plot to kill Otieno by providing the motive, encouraging the crime and financing its execution.
The judge also ruled that Obado’s former personal assistant, Michael Oyamo, helped carry out the plan, while former Migori County clerk Caspal Obiero provided logistical support and assisted in concealing the crime. All three remain in custody awaiting sentencing.
Lawyers representing Otieno’s family welcomed the verdict, saying it marked a long-awaited measure of justice.
The murder shocked the country after Nation Media Group journalist Barack Oduor revealed that Otieno had sought his help over her relationship with the then-governor. Oduor said the pair were abducted together, but he managed to escape from the moving vehicle.
Otieno’s body was found two days later.
Investigators relied heavily on Oduor’s eyewitness testimony, which became a key breakthrough in the case. Police later tracked the vehicle used in the abduction and found that its tracking device had been switched off on the day of the incident before being reactivated the following day, a move prosecutors said was intended to hide the vehicle’s movements.
The investigation further established that Obado and Otieno had been in a romantic relationship that resulted in her pregnancy, which prosecutors argued the former governor did not want.
Obado denied any involvement in the killing when he was charged in 2018. His lawyer maintained that the relationship between the two was widely known and rejected any suggestion that it provided a motive for murder.
However, the court dismissed the defence’s arguments. During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony from 42 witnesses and relied largely on circumstantial evidence to prove that Obado and his co-accused conspired to murder Otieno.
Source: BBC
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