BY SAM ALFAN.
Televangelist Gilbert Juma Deya has dismissed claims of being involved in child trafficking.
Giving his evidence before senior Principal Magistrate Robinson Ondiek, Deya said the criminal charges brought against him by the state does not contain evidence linking him to the five children.
Led by his lawyer John Swaka, the preacher said the evidence allegedly took place in 2002 when he was not in Kenya.
He said he was then in the United Kingdom and that he never authorised anyone to give the children his name or obtain their birth certificates using his name.
He told the court that his wife Mary Deya was charged with the same offence of child trafficking but was acquitted.
Deya further stated that despite the children being found in his house in Mountainview estate in Nairobi, he was not aware who brought the children in the house.
“I did not process a birth certificate for the alleged children and that the DNA result did not show that the children were mine,” said Deya.
He said he has no connection with the five children. Deya also denied having visited several clinics in Nairobi.
He said he never registered the children as his own as claimed by the prosecution.
He asked the court to acquit him for lack of evidence, saying he has never engaged himself in child trafficking.
“The ingredients of the offence have not been proven to satisfaction,” said the bishop.
In the case Deya is charged with five counts of stealing five children, all aged under 14 years, between 2002 and 2004, at Mountain View Estate, Nairobi.
Lawyer Swaka submitted that the prosecution presented several exhibits that failed to show the main ingredient that would place his client at fault and guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
“There was no evidence pointing to the offence laid out against the accused person,” said Sawka.
The lawyer told the court that the prosecution placed the reliance on a number of witnesses who failed to show that Deya received and harboured the children.
Deya was deported into the country in 2017 after the Director of Public Prosecution obtained a warrant for his arrest.
The criminal case will proceed on the 13th of March when the prosecution will cross-examine Deya.
