Three men in Kenya are facing execution after they were caught trying to steal 30 pineapples from a Del Monte plantation near Thika, a town to the northeast of Nairobi.
The three men – Julius Mugambi, Edward Mburu and Francis Maina – were first sentenced to death following court proceedings that began in 2008. They were charged with threatening security guards with machetes before stealing the pineapples, The Standard in Kenya reports, and with injuring an animal after they tried to fight off a guard dog who forced them to leave the fruit and try to escape.
The Court of Appeals ruling upheld both the sentence and the admissibility of disputed evidence provided by the dog and its handler, which was integral to identifying and sentencing the alleged thieves. Since there were no other people around, and no other farms near the Del Monte pineapple operation, there was never a police lineup or other means of identification apart from the dog that found the men hiding.
The three men remain on death row, despite the fact that they never even successfully stole the USD$15 worth of pineapples, The Standard said.
Source: africatimes.com
