A man who claims to be a nephew of a former Deputy President has suffered a major legal setback after the High Court rejected his attempt to overturn a 20-year jail sentence for robbery with violence.
Jackson Kihara Gachucha had asked the High Court to review his conviction and sentence, arguing that he was the victim of a long-running family dispute over his late father’s wealth. He claimed that a powerful relative, whom he describes as his uncle, used his influence to orchestrate his arrest, prosecution and eventual conviction.
Gachucha told the court that the criminal case was intended to frustrate his efforts to pursue claims over his father’s estate and amounted to a personal vendetta disguised as a criminal prosecution. He further argued that the trial court failed to properly consider the period he spent in custody before sentencing and urged the High Court to quash both the conviction and the jail term.
However, Justice Alexander Muteti found that the court could not revisit a matter that had already gone through the appellate process. The judge noted that Gachucha had previously challenged his conviction and sentence before the High Court but lost. He later moved to the Court of Appeal, which also upheld the conviction and sentence.
Justice Muteti ruled that the issue of time spent in custody had already been considered during sentencing and could not be used to reopen the case.
The court also dismissed attempts to link the robbery case to a succession dispute, noting that Gachucha was arrested and charged in 2015 while the father whose estate is allegedly at the centre of the dispute died two years later in 2017.
According to the judge, introducing inheritance claims into the criminal proceedings at this stage amounted to an abuse of the court process. The court consequently dismissed the application, leaving Gachucha to continue serving the 20-year sentence after exhausting challenges before both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
