Police have arrested landlady together with her husband in Bungoma County Kenya after a body of her tenant was found inside of their holding cell.
Before the arrest they had been almost subjected to mob lynching from the community, this incident happened at Mpeli Village in Chwele Market, Kabuchai Constituency in Bungoma Central on April 17, during dawn hours.
It is suspected this lady aged 31-years known as Loice Kasembeli, also nicknamed by her neighbours as Mama Kelele accompanied by her husband allegedly murdered one of their tenant, whose name was not revealed by the police authorities.
Neighbors started being inquisitive after spending a lot of time without seeing the deceased, this prompted them to storm the land lady’s house, where they discovered that their “missing” friend was already dead and murdered.
The mass was angered for this horrifying discovery, the irrataed tenants and neighbours decided to take matters into their hands subjecting the two land lords to mob justice leading to serious injuries during the lynching process.
Police officers from Chwele post arrived at the scene and rescued the suspects. The law enforcement agents, however, had to fire bullets into the air to disperse the enraged mob.
According to kenya’s Edaily Tabloid the deceased had visible neck injuries; and he was hanging from an improvised rope made out of a leso that was tied to the roof.
The accused said that their tenant who is now the deceased had been living in their quarters for over a year and was paying supposed to be paying a monthly rent of Ksh500 which is equivalent to 18900 Ugx.
Robert Wangila, who is Ms Kasembeli’s neighbour, told EDAILY of Kenya that the commercial property owner is notorious for harassing tenants who fail to pay their house rent on time.
“We had earlier confronted Ms Kasembeli and asked her where our [now-deceased] neighbour was. She declined to respond directly, only saying she has a detention cell, in which she throws rent defaulters. Early today [Wednesday], we stormed her house and found the man’s lifeless body in one of the rooms,” said Mr Wangila.
According to eye witnesses, during the scuffle the landlady’s husband reached for a machete and threatened to kill the mass in case they tried attacking them.
The residents, however, managed to snatch the weapon from him before beating up the couple.
Florence Nasambu, who is the landlady’s neighbour, says the woman on Wednesday morning told other tenants that the now-deceased had gone to request for drinking water from her. The landlady, in her testimony, alleged that the now-dead tenant was drunk when he arrived at her house.
“This woman (Ms Kasembeli) is often rude to her tenants, hence her nickname Mama Kelele. When she takes alcohol, she often insult everyone, boasting how blessed she is,” said Ms Nasambu.
However we could not independently verify Ms Nasambu’s allegations as we were waiting from the official report from the Police.