Court suspends prosecution of ex-Treasury CS Henry Rotich

The anti-corruption court has temporarily suspended the prosecution of former Treasury CS Henry Rotich, former Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge and 27 other accused persons charged over the Ksh.63 billion Kimwarer and Arror dams scandal.

This is after one of the accused persons in the case Richard Malebe was granted interim orders by Justice Mumbi Ngugi.

“The prosecution of the petitioner is hereby stayed pending hearing and determination of the petition. The application for interim orders is accordingly dispensed with that the respondents to file and serve a response if any together with submissions within three days of service,” reads the order issued by justice Mumbi Ngugi.

On Monday, when the matter came up for mention before trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti, the magistrate said that he had been informed that the petition for Malebe (accused no. 27) is coming up for hearing on March 2, 2020, adding that the prosecution has asked for 30 days to find the progress on the petition and report back to the court and also report on warrants of arrest issued against the accused persons.

“Count 1 is a conspiracy charge involving all accused persons, in staying prosecution against accused 27 effectively means even if the court was to proceed, then count 1 would also be suspended,” noted Ogoti.

Further, the court said that in order to put everything in perspective, the matter will be given 30 days in order for the DPP to report back on the two issues after which the matter will proceed for pretrial.

At the next mention, on March 26, 2020 all accused persons will be exempted from appearing in court but will be required to show up in court on the date that will be issued.

Rotich and his co-accused are charged with conspiracy to defraud the public, wilful failure to comply with applicable procedures and guidelines relating to procurement as well as engaging in a project without prior planning.

Other charges included abuse of office, committing an offence of financial misconduct, fraudulent acquisition of public property, wilful neglect to perform official duty and committing an offence of financial misconduct.

They were in July last year released on a bond of Ksh.50 million with one surety of a similar amount or Ksh.15 million cash bail.