BY SAM ALFAN.
The High Court has barred Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji and Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti from arresting or charging Judges Aggrey Muchelule and Said Chitembwe.
Justice Jairus Ngaah also suspended any further action by the DCI and the DPP against the two High Court judges.
The Judge said in order to maintain the substratum of the suit and so as not to render the substantive suit futile, the leave granted to quash the planned charges will operate as stay of any action by the police.
“To be precise, the leave granted hereby stays any decision or action to investigate, summon, arrest or charge the applicant on anything connected with the search conducted in the applicant’s Chambers on July 22,2021 pending the hearing and the determination of the substantive motion or until such further orders that this Court may deem fit to issue, ” Judge Ngaah ruled.
Former Kiambu Magistrate Bryan Khaemba moved to court seeking to block the DCI and the DPP from charging the two judges after they were picked up a day earlier and questioned over corruption allegations.
Lawyer Khaemba pleaded with the court to issue an order prohibiting further arrests of or preferring any charge against the two judges.
He recalled that detectives conducted an ‘illegal search on the judges’ chambers on July 22, 2021 and later took them for questioning.
“That upon leave being granted, the same do operate as stay of any decision to arrest, charge, investigate or summon the ex-parte Applicant connected with the unlawful and illegal search conducted in the ex-parte Applicant’s Chambers on 22nd July 2021 and the resultant arrest pending the hearing and determination of the substantive motion, ” urged Khaemba.
Khaemba said officers under the command of the DCI and DPP stormed the judges’ chambers at Milimani Law Courts ostensibly to conduct a search on suspicion that one of them was about, or had received an unknown amount of money from an undisclosed source.
The said search, he added, did not yield anything but the officers caused the arrest of the two judges and intent to charge Justice Muchelule without disclosing to him the reasons for the arrest, the particulars of the complaint and the identity of the complainant.
He said both DCI and DPP have abused their authority and power to arrest and detain the two judges without conducting any criminal investigation and it is in the interest of justice that the intended prosecution or any further arbitrary arrest of the judges be restrained pending the hearing and determination of the substantive motion challenging the legality of the entire decision.
He told the court the judges’ risked being charged, if the court did not intervene and stop the intended prosecution.
