BY SAM ALFAN.
Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji has suffered a major blow after a judge upheld a decision directing him to release vehicles belonging to former Sports CS Rashid Echesa.
Justice Luka Kimaru upheld the decision of Milimani Principal Magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot saying the magistrate correctly and properly exercised his judicial discretion when he allowed the application for the release of Echesa’s vehicles and a gun.
The Judge dismissed the application by DPP, challenging the directive to release the motor vehicles, saying it lacked merit. “There is no legal justification for the continued detention of the said property”, ruled the judge.
Echesa through his lawyer Bryan Khaemba told the court the detained property had no connection with the charges he is facing.
Khaemba told the court that high court sitting in Kakamega had issued an order restraining the police from seizing his firearms pending the hearing and determination of the application.
Lawyer Khaemba further told the court that the motor vehicles that is the subject of the application was not seized at the time of his arrest and he was arrested while he was within the central business district in Nairobi. The motor vehicle was later seized from his house.
Echesa said he bought the vehicle from Rashid Shabbir Maloo who filed an affidavit supporting the same.
Earlier Kiambu court ordered the DCI to return three vehicles they impounded from former Sports CS Rashid Echesa’s home in February.
The court ruled that the four vehicles were not part of the initial search warrant that the officers got when they went to search his home.
The investigating officer has also been directed to file a status report relating to the investigations of the remaining three vehicles by June 26.
