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DEATH PENALTY FOR KENYAN FOR KILLING UK MAN
July 29, 2013: A Kenyan man was sentenced to death in Kenya for the September 2011 killing of a British man who was shot dead and his wife kidnapped by Somali gunmen at an island resort on the Kenya coast.
Magistrate Johnstone Munguti found Ali Babito Kololo guilty of the murder of British tourist David Tebbutt, 58, who was killed. Tebbutt's wife Judith, 56, was abducted and taken to Somalia and held by pirates before being released after six months.
Munguti also sentenced Kololo to seven years in jail for the wife's abduction.
Kenya has not carried out a death sentence in the past 26 years and most sentences for death row prisoners are commuted to life imprisonment.
After the sentence was announced, Kololo said in Swahili, "I am innocent. Let the court do what it wants to do. I have been victimized in this, since I was also kidnapped."
Munguti said Kololo was convicted on circumstantial evidence after a total of 20 witnesses, including Judith Tebutt, testified in the case. The investigation was assisted by officers from Britain's Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command.
A small team of British officers travelled to Kenya shortly after the murder and kidnap to support the local police investigation. (Sources: AP, 29/07/2013)
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