07/29/2025
Heshimu Mama Yako.
Bidii na maombi ya huyu mama ilimuokoa mtoto wake.
For 14 long years, time stood still for Dorothy Kweyu.
Every sunrise brought no new hope and each sunset only deepened the pain of a mother’s worst fear—that her son, Steve Bartrand Munyakho, might never come home again.
But on a Tuesday morning at 10 am, miles away from her home, a new chapter began after Saudi Arabian authorities opened the prison gates for her firstborn son, ‘Stevo’, who was once destined for ex*****on.
As Munyakho, a 51-year-old man, who left his motherland for the Gulf in his 20's walked into freedom, Kweyu lives to tell a long but thundering tale of persistence, prayers, diplomacy and undying love of a mother.
Family, friends, and government officials gathered at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Monday evening to give a hero’s welcome to Stephen Munyakho, a Kenyan citizen who spent 14 years on death row in Saudi Arabia.
Munyakho, who has since adopted the name Abdulkareem, arrived in Nairobi shortly before midnight on a flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Munyakho had been working as a warehouse manager in Saudi Arabia when he was involved in a violent altercation with a Yemeni colleague in April 2011.
The colleague later died from his injuries, leading to Munyakho’s initial sentencing of five years for manslaughter. However, the verdict was later overturned on appeal, and the charge was elevated to murder, resulting in a death sentence by beheading.
The ex*****on was postponed after the victim’s family agreed to accept diyya (blood money), a form of financial compensation permitted under Islamic law.
Earlier this year, the Kenyan government, with support from the Muslim World League, raised Ksh129 million to settle the compensation claim.