Ex-officer wrestles murder sentence, walks to freedom after 13 years
June 10, 2021, could have been a typical normal day full of routines for any person in the South Sudan’s capital, Juba. But for 42-year-old Kenneth Kawonda Joseph, this day will forever remain engraved in his memory, one that he will live to cherish and remember with nostalgia after he walked out of the Juba Central Prison gates.
For a man who was destined for a ‘hangman’s noose’, after being slapped with capital punishment in a murder case prosecuted in 2008; no wish would have been met than a pathway to freedom. And he got it after 13 years. Dressed in an orange prison uniform, and a red face mask tacked on his neck, Kawonda waved a copy of three-judge bench ruling from the Supreme Court that freed him after successfully appealed his sentence. “I am very happy that I am back to my usual life. My message to those who are still in prison is to be patient just like me and their right time will come,’’ Kawonda remarked in emotional voice.
“I am very happy to meet my family,’’ he added. The sentence Kawonda was sentenced to death by a Yambio high court which adjudged that he had killed Jimmy Jibson in 2008. According to the ruling by the Deputy Chief Justice John Gathwech Lul, the Yambio court found Kawonda guilty after it heard that the appellant entered an altercation with Jibson and punched him. Thereafter, Kawonda, who was serving in the military at the time, was seen in a uniform after the body of the deceased was found by the roadside. A testimony by Viola Rudolf, a lady who was in the company of the deceased, stated that Kawonda was seen quarrelling with Jibson before the latter’s fateful death.
Kawonda then filed an appeal through an advocate, Geffrey Victor Bulla Advocate in 2015 and managed to convince the court of his innocence. The three-judge bench—comprising Chief Justice Chan Reech, Deputy Chief Justice John Gathwech Lul and Justice Kuc John Akot—acquitted the appellant on grounds that there was no sufficient evidence to nail him down. The judges argued that the court ought to have corroborated the testimony of Ms Rudolf, who was also the second accused before being acquitted.
‘‘The circumstantial evidence which the trial court convicted the appellant with is not corroborated by any independent evidence in order to lead to the guilt of the appellant, and therefore, I concur with my colleague of the author of the first opinion,’’ Justice Kuc John Akot stated in his ruling made on May 6, as he supported deputy CJ’s ruling of April 28. Geffrey Victor Bulla Advocate stated that the road to Kawonda’s freedom was winding, and it involved failed appeals which prompted them to join the legal battle in 2015. “…we made an appeal again in the Supreme Court [which] found out that Kenneth is innocent and he was acquitted,” it stated.
Life in prison
Although he is a free man ready to integrate into the society, Director of Juba Central Prison Lt. Gen Michael Maloe Kawonda had exhibited impressive behaviours behind bars. At the time he was leaving, he was the serving president of the facility. “The inmates chose him as the president of the death row and he took responsibility of his friends inside the prison. I just want to wish you all the best out there,” Maloe said.