KENYA: AFTER 18 YEARS IN JAIL, COURT APOLOGISES TO MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH

June 17, 2025:

Lulu Adu was just 17 when he was sentenced to die in Kenya. Eighteen years later, a court finally acknowledged its mistake — and set him free, The Star reported on June 17, 2025.
In 2006, Lulu Adu was a teenager in Mtwapa, Kilifi County, when a violent robbery upended his life. He was arrested, charged, and swiftly sentenced to death for his role in the crime — all before anyone bothered to confirm his age. Now, nearly two decades later, Kenya’s Court of Appeal has not only freed him but issued a rare apology for what it called a serious judicial failure.
The case stemmed from a robbery on the night of January 20, 2006, in Mtomondoni Village.
The complainant, Justus Mbugua, testified that two men attacked him as he closed his business.
They beat him with metal rods and stones, stealing his phone, cash, a shirt, and a cap — all together valued at Sh10,050. He later identified Adu in a police line-up and claimed some of the stolen items were recovered from Adu’s home.
He, however, maintained his innocence from the beginning. He told the court he had been asleep at home on the night of the attack and had no involvement. His co-accused, Dume Chai, was acquitted in 2009, but Adu was not so lucky. He was convicted and condemned to death — a sentence shockingly handed down despite his age.
His appeal centred on that very point: that he was a minor at the time of the offense and therefore should have been protected under Kenya’s Children's Act. According to his birth certificate, Adu was born on February 4, 1990, making him 17 years old during the trial.
The appellate court agreed that this crucial detail had been ignored.
“Counsel submitted that the appellant ought to have been afforded the protection of the law under the Children's Act,” the judgment read. Adu had even mentioned his age during his initial unsworn statement, yet the trial court failed to verify it. That oversight led to the unlawful imposition of a death sentence on a minor — a clear violation of both national and international law.
The appeal also challenged the reliability of the identification parade and questioned whether the items found in Adu’s home truly belonged to the complainant. “There was nothing peculiar or unique in these items,” the judgment noted.
Despite upholding the original conviction, the Court of Appeal ruled that the nearly 18 years Adu spent behind bars — most of his adult life — amounted to enough punishment. It substituted the death sentence with time already served and ordered his release.
“Since the two courts below did not take into account the fact that the appellant was a child offender at the time of committing the offence, we find it necessary to intervene,” the ruling stated.
Lulu Adu stepped out of prison late last month, a free man for the first time since his teens.