A man who attempted suicide from a ferry on February 22nd expressed remorse in his actions which he blamed on the burden that debts had brought to his life.
Peter Chege attested to drinking a lot of alcohol in order to gain the courage to kill himself. The married father of three further claimed that debts had weighed him down since 2015 and could not see any other way out.
He confessed that his financial troubles started in 2009 and he has harboured suicidal thoughts since 2015. Chege however stunned the same court when he disclosed that no sooner did he jump into the Indian Ocean than he regained composure and remembered his family and changed his mind.
According to the prosecution Chege attempted to end his life by jumping from the MV Harambee ferry on the Likoni channel and was rescued by lifeguards on a separate ferry. He denied the assertion that he was rescued and asserted that the lifeguards only retrieved him from a shallow area of the channel where he swam to after changing his mind not to end his life.
“I am a swimmer and I remembered my family after jumping so I decided to rescue myself. The divers found me just around five meters to the dry side of the ocean,” said Chege.
Senior Resident Magistrate Martin Rabera said the verdict will be delivered after an assessment by the probation officer.
“I stayed in a bar the whole day drinking and thinking about it and realized that this was the day after planning it for so long. After leaving the bar, I went straight to the ferry as if I was going home. I only told those aboard the ferry that I just wanted to swim because I did not want them to distract my mission which would either mean dying with some of them,” said Chege.
However, SRM Rabera told him that there many people living in debts and that killing oneself was not the solution since he would leave his family and children hurt. “We have to live because even the bible says there is a reason as to why we are living. Killing yourself will not solve anything and please don’t think of killing yourself again,” said Rabera.
The case will be mentioned on March 7, 2019 after an assessment is done by probation officers and a report presented in court.
This comes barely a week after another suspect was charged with an attempt to commit suicide.George Mwongela Kibui was charged on Friday 22nd February 2019 with trying to kill himself by using a gas cooker at Makupa area in Mombasa County and pleaded guilty to the charges.