Female sentenced to death by hanging.

The widow of former Permanent Secretary Alexander Sawe is to hang for his murder.A High Court judge ruled yesterday that 52-year-old Joan Jebichii Sawe started the dawn fire that killed Mr Sawe on September 2, 1998. She doused their bedroom with petrol as Mr Sawe slept, struck a match and fled to the bathroom as fire engulfed the room. The couple, who had been married for 20 years, had quarrelled over Mr Sawe's plans to marry 23-year-old Rose Maiyo as a 2nd wife. Justice Alex Etyang' described the murder as an example of "the most brutal form of domestic violence directed by one spouse against another." He told Mrs Sawe: "I know you also received serious burns and you have suffered psychologically. But for your action, you will continue to suffer for the remaining part of your life." Mrs Sawe, a nurse at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, stood impassively in the dock with a slight stoop, her eyes fastened on the Judge as the ruling was read. She was visibly shocked by the death sentence. Justice Etyang' said Mrs Sawe, who was fervently opposed to the proposed 2nd marriage, should have filed for divorce rather than kill her husband. She had vowed in a letter to their only son Nicholas Kiptum to defend her marriage vows to the end. She had also told her sisters- in-law, Judith and Jane Sawe, that she would not stand any embarrassment and would not accept the 2nd marriage. Said Judge Etyang': "The accused must have intended to cause Mr Sawe's death or she must have known that setting him on fire, he would be consumed by the flames or would inhale carbon-monoxide, collapse and become unconscious and in that helpless and hopeless state of immobility, he would be burnt to death". Mrs Sawe had taken seven day's leave from work to confront her sisters-in-law, whom she believed had persuaded Mr Sawe to take a 2nd wife. It was on the 1st night of the leave that she started the fatal fire at their Nairobi West Senior Civil Servants Estate house as Mr Sawe slept. The Judge dismissed Mrs Sawe's defence that they had reconciled after her husband dropped plans to marry Ms Maiyo. Mrs Sawe had claimed that they even made love on the fateful night, but the judge described this as a "Judas Kiss", saying it could not have been meant as warm send-off for Mr Sawe, who was due to travel to Malaysia on duty. "That love making, if it ever took place, did not negate the accused's intentions to kill her husband. I will treat it as a Judas kiss, a betrayal".The couple's only son, Kiptum, was not among the relatives and friends who packed the court. Two of Mrs Sawe's sisters wept when the verdict was delivered but Mr Sawe's relatives celebrated. The Judge agreed with assessors Francis Maina, Mrs Jenniffer Okello and Mrs Josephine Onginji, who had declared Mrs Sawe guilty of murder. Defence lawyer Githu Muigai is preparing to appeal. He will ask for a 5-man bench to adjudicate on the issues of of law and facts relating to circumstantial evidence. "There is nothing we can say or do because your hands are tied by the law," he told Mr Justice Etyang. Senior Principal State Counsel Horace Okumu said death was the only sentence provided by the law for a crime such as Mrs Sawe's. (source: Daily Nation News)