DPP in fresh bid to prosecute Ojienda over Mumias millions
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji will prosecute Senior Counsel Tom Ojienda if fresh evidence emerges over claims of fraudulent acquisition of Sh89 million in Mumias Sugar Company, a High Court has ruled.
This was after Justice Weldon Korir barred Haji from prosecuting Ojienda based on the earlier evidence gathered by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) when he was arraigned in court on December 21, 2019, as using the same evidence would amount to an abuse of the court process.
“Allowing Ojienda’s prosecution to proceed based on the evidence earlier gathered would amount to abuse of the court process. The DPP is at liberty to prosecute him based on any newly collected evidence,” ruled the Judge.
Korir said that the order for prohibiting the DPP from prosecution the lawyer based on the evidence presented when he was arraigned does not stop the DCI from doing it’s mandate to conduct a fresh investigation on the matter.
The orders came after Ojienda in December 2019 moved to challenge the decision of the DPP and DCI to prefer the criminal charges against him.
Ojienda was to take a plea before Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku on December 21, 2019, but did not after he obtained orders from the High Court stopping his prosecution pending the hearing of the petition.
His lawyer Otiende Amollo challenged the intended prosecution, arguing that it was an abuse of power by the DPP.
The prosecution, he said, had lined up six counts of uttering false documents.
The Senior Counsel said that matters to do with legal fees between a lawyer and his client cannot form the basis for criminal prosecution.
