BY SAM ALFAN.
A trial court has acquitted Kabete Member of Parliament Ferdinand Waititu over incitement to violence charges which he uttered in the year 2012 in Kayole.
Senior Resident Magistrate Joyce Gandani ruled that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the legislature in both counts.
“Waititu’s statements as uttered in Kayole in 2012 are concerned sentiments of a leader who was worried about outsiders doing jobs that can be done by the locals when the locals are equally jobless” ruled magistrate.
The then Embakasi MP was accused of inciting Kayole residents during protests over the killing of a street boy. Waititu demanded that all members of the Maasai community leave the area over the killing of the boy.
Residents claim the boy was murdered by two Maasai watchmen who accused him of stealing a chicken.
After his remarks, residents staged demonstrations attacking watchmen and Masaai tradesmen looting and damaging property. Two watchmen were killed in the rampage.
In this the court ruled that there was no direct evidence linking him to the murder of the two guards Waititu was charged after he made comments against ethnic Maasais on Monday, parts of which were posted on YouTube.
It is this charges that led to his suspension in the government.
The prosecution had alleged that Waititu While addressing members of the public he uttered words that were calculated to stir ethnic hatred.
The Kabete MP walks free again after he was recently aquitted of similar charges who’s he was charged alongside his Gatundu South counterpart Moses Kuria.
The Office of the DPP has cried foul over frustration by the NCIC to help them prove cases of hate speech and incitement to violence.
Senior Public prosecutor Dancun Ondimo told chief magistrate Francis Andayi that an NCIC officer has in the recent past made it impossible for him to prosecute cases against certain legislatures.
Ondimu was addressing the court in an incitement case pitting Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama where two witnesses including the said NCIC officer had to be stood down for not providing the required materials to the defence.
Until the time of this publication, the hearing of the incitement to violence case against Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama and activists Japhet Moroko was going on.
