BY SAM ALFAN.
A trial in which Senior Counsel Paul Muite was charged with stealing more than shs 24.5 million 17 years ago has been withdrawn.
This follows after the complainants in the case made an application in court to have the matter withdrawn on grounds that the Senior Counsel had settled the amount.
Trial magistrate Francis Andayi who acquitted Muite said he considered the application which was not opposed by the state.
Muite told the court he decided to settle the amountbecause he was involved in the dispute as director of Arthi holdings and he also did not want to subject the complainants to untold suffering.
“The suggestion that Arthi Holdings obtained money by false pretense when it had a valid agreement with the America Embassy is with no basis, ” Muite who had successfully challenged and stopped his prosecution told the trial court.
“It is better for me to loose that Money that was forfeited to Americans,” he said.
The complaints Mwana Mwireri Rironi and Naivasha farmer said that Muite paid the previous directors 8 million first and then paid the balance of 16 million.
The case has been pending in a Nairobi court since July 1999.
Muite was charged on July 23, 1999, with six counts of stealing money from Mwana Mwireri Rironi and Naivasha Farmers Company.
The offence was said to have been committed between December 1992 and December 1993. He faced an alternative charge of obtaining money through fraud.
He was charged in his capacity as chairman of the private company, Athi Holdings.
