BY IRENE ONYANGO.
A city man who has been impersonating an advocate will remain in custody for one day pending a ruling on his bail application after he denied six counts of forgeries.
Brian Mwenda Njagi was remanded at Industrial Area as Milimani Chief Magistrate Lukas Onyina set October 19 for a ruling on his bail application.
The charges against Mwenda stated that he knowingly and fraudulently made a false Certificate of Admission in the name of Brian Mwenda N purporting it to be genuine and allowed him to practice as an advocate.
It is alleged that he committed the offence between 30th August 2022 and 3rd March 2023 at unknown place with intent to deceive.
On the second count, the fake advocate was accused of forging a certificate of admission in the name of Brian Mwenda and practicing at the Law firm of Mwangi Kiai LLP Advocates.
The certificate, which claimed to have been issued on March 3, 2023 stated that he was practicing at offices based in Westlands..
The court heard that with intent to deceive, he fraudulently and knowingly uttered a forged Practicing Certificate for the Year 2023 in the name of BRIAN N. MWENDA (Practice No.LSK/2023/01004) allegedly issued by the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary.
It is alleged that Mwenda committed the offence on 9th October 2023, at the Law firm of Micheka Omwenga and Company Advocates offices, based at Nairobi Central Business District within Nairobi County.
Further, Mwenda is charged with fraudulently and dishonestly using Advocate’s Admission number, being a unique identifier assigned to Brian Mwenda Ntwiga, who is an advocate of the High Court to access and use the Law Society of Kenya online Advocates account.
His defence Lawyers led by Dr John Khaminwa and Danstan Omari opposed the participation of the LSK President Eric Theuri in the proceedings as victims.
Omari, said Theuri is supposed to either be victim or defence witnesses in the matter hence cannot act as victim.
In response, Theuri said the LSK is directly affected as the umbrella of all lawyers.
The prosecution J.B Owiti in support of the LSK President told the court that the defense had not placed any convincing reason in court to persuade the prosecution to be their witness.
The ruling on whether the LSK will be allowed to participate in the case will be delivered on 19th October 2023.
