Mathew Kanyamunyu has been sentenced to 5 years and 1 month imprisonment. He entered a plea bargain with DPP and pleaded guilty to manslaughter of Kenneth Akena.
Kanyamunyu’s girlfriend Cynthia Munwangari was set free by the court after the DPP withdrew the charges against her. She was with him when Kenneth Akena, a children rights activist, died on Nov 12, 2016.
Kanyamunyu and his girlfriend Manangwari
In September, 2020 Mathew Kanyamunyu, who was a prime suspect in the shooting of Kenneth Akena Watmon, confessed to the crime and agreed to pay reparation for the offence.
Previously, Kanyamunyu’s family had sought the intervention of Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) and Acholi Cultural Institution to broker a reconciliation agreement between them and Akena’s family to find closure to the case.
Dr John Baptist Odama, the Gulu Archbishop backed by Rwot David Onen Acana II, the Paramount Chief of Acholi persuaded Akena’s family who in turn opened up to the negotiations. The reconcilers summoned the two families for the first meeting that was held in September in Gulu.
The meeting that was held under tents at Ker Kwaro Acholi compound was presided over by Rwot Acana II as a chief witness. A council of six elders cross-examined Kanyamunyu as a requisite step of prior to Mato Oput – a clan or family-centred reconciliation practice.
A family source privy to the negotiations revealed that Kanyamunyu made a step by step recount of what happened between him and Akena on November 12, 2016, at Forest Shopping Mall in Lugogo before he pleaded for clemency from Ogom chiefs, Akena’s clan leaders.
“He admitted that he would make the same confession before the High Court in Kampala where he was being prosecuted to allow him to enter a plea bargain,” the source told the press in an interview. The same source added that after the confession, the elders on the protocol of Mato Oput made an assessment of 10 cows and three goats to be paid by Kanyamunyu’s family to which they agreed to.
Kanyamunyu knelt while apologizing
plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty or nolo contendere to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor.
This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.
A plea bargain allows both parties to avoid a lengthy criminal trial and may allow criminal defendants to avoid the risk of conviction at trial on a more serious charge. For example, in the legal system of the United States, a criminal defendant charged with a felony theft charge, the conviction of which would require imprisonment in state prison, may be offered the opportunity to plead guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge, which may not carry a custodial sentence.
