Reprieve for illegal Somali alien after court slashes six-year prison term

Kenya's borders with its neighbours are notoriously porous. In the northern counties like Mandera, people routinely slip across the frontier daily—herders, traders, even families—often using unofficial paths known only to the residents: until luck runs out, as it did for Marsack.

Now, the High Court has halved his six-year jail term that a magistrate handed him in Mandera for illegal entry and being in the country illegally.

Law enforcement officers in Wargadud township in Mandera Central subcounty arrested Marsack in April 2023. He was charged with being in Kenya illegally.

The police report was straightforward: “Being a Somali national, he was found unlawfully present in Kenya without a valid passport or permit authorising him to stay.” But that wasn’t the only charge he faced.

Marsack was also accused of entering Kenya through a place not designated as an official point of entry. He came in through Damasa, a small location in Lafey subcounty, but did not present himself to the immigration authorities.

When the charges were read to him, Marsack pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to three years in prison for each offense. The court ordered that the sentences would run consecutively, meaning he would spend six years behind bars.

But Marsack appealed the decision, challenging the legality and harshness of the sentence.

The High Court found that while Marsack broke the law, the two offenses—illegal entry and being unlawfully present in Kenya—were committed in a single, continuous act. They were part of the same crime and should not have attracted consecutive sentences.

“It is apparent that the appellant, immediately he entered Kenya without a valid document or visa through an unauthorised point, committed the two offenses in a continuous chain of events,” the judgment reads. “The trial court applied wrong principles by imposing an illegal and excessive sentence.”

The court held that the two sentences would run concurrently.

 In a region where borders blur and survival often trumps paperwork, Marsack’s story is a reminder of how a simple border crossing can spiral into a legal ordeal—one that, for him, ended with a small but meaningful reprieve.