murder - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Kenyan doomsday cult leader charged with murder of 191 children

KENYAN cult leader Paul Mackenzie and 29 associates were charged with the murder of 191 children whose bodies were found among more than double that number buried in a forest. The defendants all denied the charges brought before a court in the coastal town of Malindi. One suspect was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Prosecutors say Mackenzie ordered his followers to starve themselves and their children to death so that they could go to heaven before the world ended, in one of the world's worst cult-related disasters in recent history. The followers of his Good News International Church lived…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Six teens in court in connection with beheading of French teacher

WORLD

SIX teenagers go on trial behind closed doors in connection with the beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, a murder that shocked the country. The teacher had shown his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering some Muslim parents. Most Muslims avoid depictions of prophets, considering them blasphemous. A 13-year-old girl at the time allegedly told her parents that Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the caricatures. She is facing false accusation charges after it was established that she was not in the class when it…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s police are losing the war on crime – here’s how they need to rethink their approach

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SOUTH Africa’s crime statistics for the third quarter of 2023 show that people continue to face a serious problem of violent crime, especially murder and attempted murder. The country’s per capita murder rate for 2022/23 was the highest in 20 years at 45 per 100,000 (a 50% increase compared to 2012/13). GUY LAMB, Criminologist / Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch University In response to this crisis, the South African Police Service has reconfigured its policing strategies and plans. Yet, these approaches offer very little innovation. They mostly reaffirm the way the police have typically pursued policing for the past three decades –…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Australia police charge woman with murder over mushroom lunch

WORLD

AUSTRALIAN police said that they had charged a 49-year-old woman with the murder of three elderly people, with local media reporting the three died after they ate poisonous mushrooms at a lunch hosted by the woman. Victoria state police also charged the woman with five counts of attempted murder - two related to the meal on July 29 this year and three related to separate incidents in 2021 and 2022 when they said a 48-year-old man became ill following meals. Police had earlier searched the woman's house with the help of technology detector dogs trained to sniff out tiny electronic…

Oct

2023

By ARLETTE BASHIZI

Congo colonel found guilty of murder for role in Goma massacre in August

NEWS

A Congolese colonel has been found guilty of murder and other crimes related to the August killing of 56 people during an army crackdown on anti-U.N. demonstrations in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a local court said. Colonel Mike Mikombe, who was head of the Republican Guard unit in the city of Goma, where the incident took place, was one of six soldiers on trial. He was sentenced to death, but the death penalty is no longer applied in Congo and is generally commuted to life imprisonment. His lawyer, Serge Lukanga, said he would appeal the decision. Three other…

Jun

2023

By EMMA FARGE

Swiss court confirms historic war crimes ruling against Liberia warlord

NEWS

A Swiss court upheld a guilty verdict for war crimes in the case of a former Liberian rebel commander and convicted him of crimes against humanity in a landmark case. Alieu Kosiah, who fought in the 1990s against then-President Charles Taylor's army, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2021 for rape, murder and cannibalism in Switzerland's first ever war crimes trial. Those charges and others were upheld by the court although he was acquitted of ordering and inflicting cruel treatment, the Swiss Federal Court's appeal bench said in a statement. Four of his acts were deemed crimes…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Three Alabama teens charged with murder in ‘Sweet 16’ party shooting

WORLD

BRENDAN O'BRIEN THREE Alabama teenagers have been taken into custody and charged with murder in last week's shooting at a "Sweet 16" birthday party that left four dead and 32 wounded, state police said. Two suspects - Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16 - both from Tuskegee, were arrested on Tuesday night and charged with four counts of reckless murder, Sergeant Jeremy Burkett of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said during a news conference. The agency said a few hours later that a third person had been arrested. Wilson LaMar Hill Jr., 20, of Auburn, was taken into…

Feb

2023

By HUMPHREY MALALO

Housemate denies murder of Kenyan LGBTQ activist

NEWS

THE housemate of Kenyan model, designer and LGBTQ rights campaigner Edwin Chiloba, whose body was found in a metal box last month, denied the charge of murder on Wednesday. Jacktone Odhiambo, who police believe to have been in a relationship with Chiloba, was accused of murdering him between the night of December 31 and January 3. Chiloba died from suffocation caused by socks stuffed into his mouth, a pathologist said last month. His death sent shockwaves through the LGBTQ community in Kenya, where homosexuality is taboo and gay sex is punishable by 14 years in prison, although that law is rarely enforced. Thomson Reuters…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Cameroonian businessman arrested after journalist’s murder

NEWS

AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG A Cameroonian businessman was arrested in connection with the murder of a prominent journalist, Martinez Zogo, whose mutilated remains were found near the capital Yaounde last month after he was abducted, the national radio station CRTV said. The case has roiled the Central African nation, with some government and security officials cited by media as suspects. The president's office said last week that several suspects had been arrested, but gave no details. Zogo, the director of private radio station Amplitude FM, was kidnapped on January 17 by unknown assailants after trying to enter a police station to escape…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Kenya: Police officers jailed for lawyer’s murder

NEWS

HUMPHREY MALALO A Kenyan court sentenced three police officers and their civilian informant to decades in prison for the 2016 murder of human rights lawyer Willie Kimani and two others. The case triggered outrage in Kenya, where police face frequent allegations of brutality and extrajudicial killings but are almost never charged. Kimani, his client Josephat Mwendwa and their driver, Joseph Muiruri, were killed shortly after filing a complaint of police brutality, alleging that Mwendwa had been shot and wounded by police. Their bodies were later recovered from a river outside the capital Nairobi. The four defendants were convicted of murder last year.…