BY NT CORRESPONDENT.
Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero
is properly charged before the Anti-corruption court.
This is after trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti dismissed claims by former Governor that the Sh213 million corruption charges against him are defective.
In his ruling the magistrate said that all charges as preferred against him and 10 others meet the threshold of the law in criminal pleadings, procedure and practice.
He further said that there are no good reasons that were placed before the court to enable it to interfere with the charges.
“Accordingly the two applications are hereby disallowed and dismissed. The case to proceed as scheduled at the next hearing ,” ordered Ogoti.
The magistrate said that having listened to all parties and against the applications, court found that it has not been given sufficient authority either by way of precedent or or otherwise to give it the necessary authority or powers to discharge Kidero or any other accused from the trial.
Kidero and ten others were last year charged with conspiring to commit fraud which led to the loss of Sh213,327,300 at the county government between January 16, 2014, and January 25, 2016.
Former governor had filed an application claiming the charge sheet was defective.
Through his lawyer James Orengo, Kidero argued that count one relates to an offence that does not exist in law. He also said the particulars in the charge sheet did not disclose an offence.
He wanted the court to order that the offences of dealing with the suspect property as set out in counts two and three of the charge sheet be separated from the others and he be tried separately.
On Monday, Ogoti concluded that the charge sheet was not defective but disclosed a complete offence.
He also said he found no good reasons to order for separate trials as requested by Kidero. In arriving at the ruling, the court considered undesirability of duplicating proceedings, extra expenses, inconveniences and whether it will cause prejudice.
Kidero had also claimed the term fraud is not defined in the Anti-Corruption and Economics Crimes Act (ACECA) whereas the term corruption is defined.
But the magistrate said the fact that the term ‘fraud’ on its own is not defined in ACECA is not a ground to dismiss a charge of corruption as the fraud itself forms part of the charge of corruption.
“The term fraud is well defined in our law and lack of its specific definition in ACECA cannot and does not vitiate a charge of corruption,” he said.
The court also dismissed an application by Kidero’s co-accused John Githua and Grace Njeri of Lodwar Wholesalers and Ngurumani Traders Limited.
The two challenged their prosecution on grounds that there was a tax dispute pending at the Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) which was initiated before the decision to have them charged.
