Moses Kuria given 14 days to respond to another hate speech case

Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has been given 14 days to file his submissions in a case in which he is charged with hate speech.

Senior Principal Magistrate Teresia Nyangene gave the directions after the prosecution called three witnesses among them former Law Society of Kenya (LSK) boss Apollo Mboya to testify in the case against Kuria.

The legislator is facing charges of incitement to violence, hate speech and ethnic contempt in his Facebook post on May 2014.

According to prosecution, the post was intended to incite the public to violence against a specific community.

Kuria was accused of posting a message on his Facebook that was seen to be targeting a certain community for allegedly habouring terrorists, after the twin explosion in Nairobi’s Gikomba market in which 12 people died and dozens others were hospitalised.

The MP had been summoned to appear before the court on the recommendation of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission after complaints by Law Society of Kenya which was also sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko.

Kuria is currently out on a cash bail of Ksh 2 million.

The legislator is also facing another case in court for allegedly asking youth in his Gatundu South constituency to use pangas and defend NYS projects, after CORD leader Raila Odinga accused the then Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru of corruption.

Kuria is also facing a third case in which he is accused of calling for the assassination of CORD leader Raila Odinga.

The two leaders have since sought to move beyond the utterances, even having lunch together with six other legislators who had been detained at Muthaiga and Pangani police stations over alleged hate speech.

Report by Dzuya Walter