THE Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence slapped on Cephas Kaniki of Masaiti district after establishing that he killed his mother, whom he accused of being a witch. This is a case in which Kaniki had appealed against the High Court’s decision to convict him of murder and sentence him to death.

The High Court found that after a drinking spree, Kaniki called for a meeting with five of his siblings at their mother’s house to confront her on allegations by some people in the village that she was a witch. Kaniki told his siblings that he was compelled to confront their mother because of the problems he was facing in his life.

The court heard that Kaniki asked his youngest sister to go with him to their mother’s house and that during a confrontation, a fight ensued between him and his mother. During the fight, Kaniki’s mother fell down and he then asked his sister to give him a pounding stick, which he used to hit her until she died. The siblings did not report the incident to the police until the following day when one of Kaniki’s sisters who was not at the meeting found her mother dead in her house.

All the six were detained and all the evidence pointed to Kaniki as having been the one who killed their mother. The High Court rejected Kaniki’s defence of extenuating circumstance that he was drunk as he was ‘fully collected’ when he addressed the meeting and that none of his siblings attested to that fact.

The High Court also refused to accept the extenuating belief in witchcraft because Kaniki had told the court that he did not believe his mother was a witch. The Supreme Court upheld the findings of the High Court and maintained the death sentence against Kaniki.