Death sentence for attackers of Kenyan writer

NAIROBI, Dec 15 (Reuters) A Kenyan court today sentenced three security guards to death for attacking and robbing renowned writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o and his wife.

During a homecoming after a 22-year self-imposed exile, Thiong'o was brutally beaten by four men in his apartment in Nairobi. His wife Njeeri was raped and burnt with cigarettes on the night of the attack in August 2004.

''The offence of robbery with violence is notorious in Nairobi and must be discouraged by imposing stiffer penalties,'' principal magistrate Julie Oseko said when passing sentence.

The three attackers -- Richard Kayago Maeta, Elias Sikuku Wanjala and Peter Mulati Wafula -- were convicted on Wednesday.

Wafula was additionally sentenced to 21 years in prison for rape. They said they would appeal.

The death sentence remains on Kenya's statutes, but has not been used since perpetrators of a 1980s coup attempt were hung.

Four men attacked Thiong'o at the high-security apartment complex of a city-centre hotel. His nephew, John Kiragu Chege, was cleared of charges this week.

The magistrate said the 2004 attack was a normal case of robbery with violence, with no political overtones as Thiong'o had alleged.

A laptop computer and jewellery were stolen.

Thiong'o said he did not agree with the death sentence but welcomed the convictions, although he took issue with the magistrate's statement that there were no other responsible parties at large.

''She (the magistrate) had no right to say that, she had no basis to say that. It is wrong,'' he told a news conference.

''The court's astonishing ruling and opinion may well have given, however unintentionally, comfort to those forces that had orchestrated the attack. It amounted to an unfounded exoneration of all forces connected with the attack.'' Thiong'o, a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California-Irvine, was jailed for a year without charge in 1977, then fled Kenya in 1982 after troops razed a theatre where one of his plays was being performed.

The novelist and playwright's works have been critical of British colonial rule and also, implicitly, of Kenya's post-independence governments for corruption and exploitation of the poor.

His best works include ''Weep Not Child'', ''A Grain Of Wheat'', ''Detained'', ''Petals Of Blood'' and ''Devil On The Cross''.

Nairobi is notorious for violent crime -- drawing the name ''Nairobbery'' from it denizens.

REUTERS AB KN2104