A Kisumu court has sentenced Bishop Joseph Agutu Obala to 75 years in jail for defiling three minors and deliberately infecting one of them with HIV.
Each defilement crime attracted a 20 year sentence which he will serve consecutively, while the latter offence earned him 15 years behind bars.
The court heard the clergyman committed the aforementioned crimes while living with the girls, two aged 15 and one 14, in an orphanage in Kisumu between April and July 2016.
Bishop Agutu was also accused of touching the girls inappropriately on numerous occasions, claims that he has denied.
He in fact told the court that the allegations against him were false. According to the man of the cloth, there was no conclusive proof showing that he infected one of his victims with the virus.
He further claimed that the girls used his phone to communicate with their boyfriends while he was away.
His lawyer Steve Akoko has said that he will appeal Resident Magistrate Pauline Mbulika’s ruling in its entirety.
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“The bishop is a layman so he could have missed procedures or technicalities during the trial,” he said.
On Thursday, Ngoloma Kakenyi Mulinge, 51, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for repeatedly defiling and impregnating a 12-year-old, Standard Four pupil in 2016.
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