We’ve new evidence in Korane Sh233m corruption case – DPP
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has new evidence against Garissa Governor Ali Korane in the Sh 233 million corruption case.
When the case came for hearing on Monday, March 1, before trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti, DPP Haji through Senior State Counsel Mercy Gature, told the court that they have new information in the case against Korane and his co-accused persons.
Gature told the magistrate that in the course of pretrial with the witnesses lineup to testify in the case, they discovered new evidence which will be vital for the case.
As such, the state sought 14 days to serve Korane’s defence with the new evidence, a request Ogoti granted, adding a further two weeks for the team representing the accused persons to prepare.
But Korane's lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi did not oppose the state's request to be supplied with the new evidence and have the hearing dates for the matter that was slated for this month.
" We have no objection to the court granting the prosecution so that they can serve both parties with new evidence. we can take out the hearing dates for this month and resume for hearing in April," said Ahmednasir.
However, the magistrate had earlier indicated the hearing of the case can not proceed since the court space was not enough as per the Ministry of health guidelines.
" l can not proceed with the way parties in this matter are seatedfolloing the covid-19 guidelines issued by the ministry of Health. This court can only hold a maximum of seventeen people as the court is not well ventilated," said the magistrate.
Ogoti allowed the adjournment until April 19 for the hearing.
"The DPP is allowed 14 days to serve the defence with the new evidence and defence is given two weeks to take instructions from their clients. the matter is removed from the hearing list of March," ruled Ogoti.
In the case, Korane and the county officials were last September barred from accessing the county offices until their corruption case against him was decided.
The accused persons face eight counts of conspiracy to commit an economic crime, failure to comply with procurement law relating to the management of public funds and misappropriation of public funds.
They allegedly committed the offences between February 25 and September 30, 2019.
The case is in relation to the alleged mismanagement of a Sh233,506,000 conditional grant allocated to Garissa County for the Kenya Urban Support Programme.
The grant, under the Kenya Urban Support Programme, was to be used to construct Qorahey market, re-carpet Garissa township roads and put up stormwater drainage and pedestrian walkways.
The governor co-accused are the county’s chief finance officer Ibrahim Malow, head of county treasury Mohamed Abdullahi, chief executive of Garissa Municipal Board Abdi Bulle and the county’s head of accounting Ahmed Aden.
