A Nairobi court yesterday spared an elderly woman a 20-year jail sentence for handling property owned by a terrorist group.

Senior Principal Magistrate Kenneth Cheruiyot spared Rose Awinja the sentence because she is sickly. The court instead ordered that she be put under police surveillance for five years.

Cheruiyot noted that Awinja had lost everything after her son- Anwar Yogan Mwok- who was a member of the Al-Shabaab was killed in Somalia by Kenya Defence Forces in 2017.

Awinja was found guilty of managing a property in Nairobi owned by Al-Shabaab insurgents.  The property is a house in Nasra Gardens Estate in Umoja, Nairobi which was owned by her late son- Anwar.

“Sending the convict to a 20-year jail term would be condemning her to the next world. This court exercises mercy upon her and places her under police supervision for five years based on her health condition,” he ruled.

She had denied that between December 11, 2013 and March 15, 2017, she knowingly dealt with property owned by Al Shabaab group.

When she was convicted, Awinja broke down in court, begging the court to have mercy on her.

In mitigation, veteran lawyer John Khaminwa, who was not on record for Awinja asked the court to consider a non-custodial sentence for the “sickly aging mother,” Khaminwa pleaded ading that terrorism has adversely affected this country seriously.