DPP asks Supreme Court to uphold 20-Year jail term for Ex-Venezuelan Diplomat

NAIROBI, Kenya Oct 12 – The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has urged the Supreme Court to uphold the conviction and 20-year prison sentence imposed on former Venezuelan Embassy official Dwight Sagaray over the murder of ambassador Olga Fonseca Jimenez in Nairobi in 2012.

In written submissions opposing Sagaray’s appeal, the prosecution argued that the evidence presented during his trial was sufficient to sustain the conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal in a judgment delivered on March 7, 2025.

Sagaray filed his petition before the Supreme Court on August 7, 2026, challenging the appellate court’s decision and arguing that Kenyan courts lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him because Venezuela had not expressly waived his diplomatic immunity.

However, the DPP maintains that Sagaray’s diplomatic functions had ended following communication from Venezuelan authorities terminating his diplomatic mission and cancelling his diplomatic passport.

The prosecution further argued that any immunity he might have retained did not shield him from prosecution for acts falling outside his diplomatic functions.

In Petition No. E030 of 2026, the State urged the court to reject the appeal, maintaining that the conviction was not based merely on suspicion, motive or Sagaray’s association with another suspect, but on the cumulative weight of circumstantial evidence considered by the trial court and the Court of Appeal.

The prosecution cited evidence relating to a dispute over control of the Venezuelan Embassy, Sagaray’s relationship with Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Hassan and events surrounding Fonseca’s murder.

It argued that circumstantial evidence can sustain a conviction where the facts, considered collectively, establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt and exclude reasonable alternative explanations.

Sagaray, however, disputes the prosecution’s case, contending that the courts relied on his alleged motive, the perceived benefit he stood to gain and his association with Hassan without sufficient evidence directly linking him to the killing.

He maintains that Venezuela’s failure to expressly waive his diplomatic immunity rendered his prosecution unlawful.

The Supreme Court Deputy Registrar has directed that the petition be placed before the Deputy Chief Justice for the empanelment of a bench and further directions.

The court’s forthcoming proceedings will determine the next steps in the appeal, which challenges both the jurisdiction of Kenyan courts to try Sagaray and the evidential basis of his conviction.

Fonseca was murdered in July 2012, in a case that drew attention to diplomatic immunity and the limits of legal protection enjoyed by foreign diplomatic officials in Kenya.