BY NT CORRESPONDENT.
There was beater exchange between the prosecution and defence team in Sh230 million National Youth Service (NYS) scandal after lawyers accused the Director of Public Prosecutions of seeking to sneak in new evidence.
Lawyer Danstan Omari urged the court to dismiss application by prosecution seeking to adduce new evidence and his client was ready to proceed with the matter as state continue to make frivolous applications.
He told the trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti that the application by the state to introduce extra evidence is illegal theory and prosecution still believes they are sovereign and can bring evidence any time during the trial.
Lawyer Omari further submitted that, the defense have already prepared on how to defend the accused person based on the evidence supplied by prosecution.
“The defence have developed a legal theory to depend the accused and the theory is based on the evidence adduced by prosecution. Any further introduction of new evidence distort the defense team “submitted lawyer Omari.
He said the state on several occasions have reiterated that they have a water tight case against accused persons.
Is the state panicking that the evidence produced is not worth to convict the accused persons? Omari paused a question.
Trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti was told that he should not be helping the prosecution sanitize its mess by allowing it to produce several vouchers and bank statements said to have been used in making payments from NYS.
“It is because they have realised they have no case and are now asking for more time to recreate the case by introducing new evidence.
We cannot allow them to introduce new evidence midstream through the trial after they have realised the others were dead on arrival,” said Ogamba.
The DPP, through principal prosecution counsel Caroline Kimiri, asked the court to allow them introduce payment vouchers, bank statements and witness statements from some bank officials which were not part of the original exhibits.
According to the prosecutor, the payment vouchers had been misplaced during examination of documents by investigators, and that they only obtained the statements after the pre-trial had taken place.
“Non-disclosure of the evidence was an oversight and although we had supplied majority of the evidence we will rely on, it is only fair that we be allowed to introduce and disclose to the accused persons before we proceed,” said Kimiri
Ruling to be delivered tomorrow.
