The Eldoret High Court has jailed a 52-year-old Ugandan herbalist, Mawanda Asuma, for 25 years for the murder of a senior official of the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN).
Presiding Judge Reuben Nyakundi found Asuma guilty of killing Ferdinand Ongeri, who served as the deputy chairman of KNUN’s Kisumu branch.
Ongeri, a 40-year-old nurse stationed at the Ramogi Institute of Advanced Technology (RIAT) dispensary in Kisumu County, was brutally murdered between July 24 and July 27, 2019. His body was later discovered in Kimondi Forest, Nandi County.
Asuma denied the murder charge but was refused bail after the prosecutors convinced the court he was a flight risk.
When he was summoned to testify in his defense in December 2024, Mawanda Asuma denied any involvement in the torture and murder of Ferdinand Ongeri. He told the court that Ongeri was not only his client but also his best friend.
Asuma explained that he was treating Ongeri with herbal medicine to assist with obesity complications and asserted he had no reason to murder an individual he loved and cared about so dearly.
The court heard that Asuma traded in herbal medicine on a cross-border scale, doing business in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Ongeri disappeared shortly after he had brokered a large promotion deal for nurses with the health department in the region.
His decomposing body was later found by herdsmen in Kimondi Forest, meters from Kapsabet town in Nandi County, who promptly reported the discovery to the local authorities.
Emily Cherono, the Kiptuywa area Chief in Nandi County, was among the first national government officials to arrive at the scene where Ongeri’s body had been dumped. In her testimony, she told the court that the body showed clear signs of torture, with multiple bruises and deep cuts on the stomach and inside the mouth.
The judge, in his ruling, stated that the prosecution had established the murder case against Asuma beyond a reasonable doubt.
