A bid by Jackson Kihara Gachucha to have his 20-year prison sentence reviewed has been rejected by the High Court, leaving his conviction and punishment for robbery with violence unchanged.
In a ruling delivered by Justice Alexander Muteti, the court found that the issues raised by Gachucha had already been considered and determined by the Court of Appeal.
As a result, the High Court ruled that it could not reopen or reconsider matters that had already been settled by a higher court.
Gachucha, who is serving his sentence at Manyani Maximum Prison, had asked the court to review both his conviction and sentence. He argued that he had been wrongly prosecuted and convicted, claiming that the criminal case against him was part of a wider effort to block him from pursuing claims related to his father’s estate.
According to his application, the prosecution was allegedly motivated by personal interests and presented as a criminal matter to prevent him from advancing his inheritance claims.
He further claimed that his prosecution was connected to disagreements involving documents linked to his late father’s estate.
Gachucha, who says he is the son of the late former Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua and has publicly identified himself as Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s nephew, maintained that the criminal proceedings against him were tied to the family succession dispute.
However, the court was not persuaded by those arguments. Justice Muteti pointed to the sequence of events and noted that Gachucha was arrested and charged in 2015, while the father whose estate is at the centre of the dispute passed away in 2017.
The judge found that this timeline weakened the claim that the robbery case had been initiated because of disagreements over the estate.
The court also observed that many of the issues raised in the application involved factual matters that had already been examined by the Court of Appeal. Justice Muteti stated that the High Court could not revisit those findings unless there were compelling reasons that would justify a retrial, which had not been demonstrated in this case.
In addition, the judge noted that some of the concerns raised by Gachucha fell outside the powers of the High Court. Such matters, the court said, could only be pursued before the Supreme Court.
With those findings, the court dismissed the application, meaning Gachucha will continue serving the 20-year sentence imposed on him.
The ruling effectively brings his latest attempt to challenge the conviction to an end at the High Court level.